Hello hello to y’all! Sorry for my complete radio silence lately. I feel like a lot has been happening recently, but at the same time, not all that much has been happening and life is just ticking away! There are, however, a few pretty big life things to update you on and my tongue is fiiirmly in cheek with my title to this blog as they really are biggies!

Now I haven’t been quite sure how to go about sharing these (part of the reason for my silence. I have been pondering how to do so)… I don’t want to be someone who just shows the big, exciting news online and omits all the hard stuff, but I feel like I have been plenty honest over the last two years, with all the hard stuff, as well as the good stuff, so that you have a real perception of what life is actually like for me, not just the Instagram / social friendly version of things. Which I think makes it okay to share with you the more exciting, happy things of life too without feeding into just showing the good stuff 🙂

So, without further ado, some news..

1) we have a wedding date! Obviously this is covid dependent and may still change but we have a date and we have started on some preparations which is all very exciting. I might even have a wedding dress.. 😜

2) we’re gonna have a house here! It’s yet to be built but, God willing, will be started to be built very soon which is just the most exciting thing ever!! Our future plans are still unfolding so it isn’t to say we’re going to be living here permanently but we do need a place to live whilst Nolz finishes his uni degree and we figure out the future together so our house is gonna be such a blessing! I never ever imagined that I’d need to have opinions on what I wanted for my own house (I mean, building one from scratch), so it’s been a little overwhelming at points but incredibly exciting! And I’m very excited that we have built in the idea of having a little window reading seat into the plans 😏 (something I have aaaalwaysss dreamed about! Sadly my brother’s suggestion about having a secret room behind a bookcase or something to that effect came in a bit too late but ya cant have everything! Haha) but yeah, I thought maybe oneee day we might have our own house, but definitely not yet and definitely not one we’ve been a part of building and planning etc! I love love looove going to see our plot of land. Every now and then I talk Noly into going to have a little visit to it, just to check it’s still there and hasn’t disappeared, ya know? And even more exciting than all this, is that our prospective future neighbours have an incredibly cute dog who is suuuuuper friendly, so I’m already imagining we’ll basically have a dog 😉

3. Okay so this one is somewhat out of left field but bear with me and try not to laugh toooo much 😂 but I have been approached by a documentary sound person, who has asked me if I want to do the voiceover for a scientific documentary they’re doing in Chile 😂 I mean.. what ? 😂 I still don’t quite understand what’s happening here and how this has happened, but here we are! So ya gal Nadz is basically gonna be the next David Attenborough. Except for for science, not nature. And not quite so old as ol’ Davieboy. And obviously not a patch on the legend but there y’are. Well, all that being said, they have to accept me first. They might not be keen on my voice 😂 basically, they want a British female person (I mean, they’re kinda in short supply of them here in Latin America so I’d say I’m in with a shot but time will tell 😂) so i had to send a recording of me reading this scientific text to someone who was gonna send it on to Chile for them to decide if they like my voice or not and we’ll see what they say. I’m pretty chilled either way but it will be absolutely hilarious if I actually get it 😂 so watch this space 😂

4. Some may say this is not such a big news item as the above three, but I would beg to differ! I made a purchase recently that has changed my life. Ya wanna know what it is? Well, my friend, I shall tell you. I bought… (Drum roll), a toastie maker! Honestly. Changed my life. Absolutely cracking it is. I’m not sure why no-ones ever shared with me the joy that is a toastie maker, since when I told various family members/pals they all (literally all of them, no joke) regaled me with tales of their youth and fond memories that involved toastie makers. I’m not even kidding, genuinely, everyone was like, “ah yes I remember the good old days with that toastie maker I owned at uni!” etc!

5. Supposedly, I shall be getting the first dose of the vaccine on Monday! I say supposedly because you never quite know what’s going to happen with Argentina and I’m slightly skeptical, but we’ll see. I know this probs won’t be that mind-blowing for those of you tuning in from England, but it is for Argentina. The vaccination programme is going incredibly slowly here. Last I heard they were still vaccinating over 60 year olds with the first dosage. So if you look at Nolys family and network, I will be one of the first to get the vaccine (apart from his grandmother’s who beat me to it 😜) bit nuts really since for health reasons other people in Nolys family should also be eligible for it but are unlikely to get it for a while.

6. It appears that I have underactive thyroid, which is a bit of a bummer I won’t lie to you! I think perhaps I’ve had it for a little while and we didnt really realise, because the symptoms are similar to those felt with stress, and I was very stressed last year (probs had a mix of the two). But anyways, I’m taking medication which is helping. I’m also trying to do more exercise lately which includes going for daily walks (keep me accountable please!) which should help my energy levels. Today, I have had a cracker of a day exercise wise. Been feeling sad today generally for many reasons so once I’d finished what I needed to do for the day, I took myself out for an hour’s walk and then met some gal pals to play padel ( a sport here that I actually enjoy surprisingly. This is literally the first and only sport I’ve ever actively wanted to play 😂). Literally got back to my flat and was like, I am going to do exercise every day for the rest of my entire life (this is very different from my general attitude towards exercise..) Was feeling so invigorated. And like I should go for a run and do allll of the things ever. Obviously that disappeared when I sat down to catch up on some netflix but it’s crazy how much exercise can actually energise you!

So anyways! Those are my bits of news for the moment. Sorry to have gone silent on ya for quite a bit there, been just tryina keep my head above water and keep going, but I shall try not to leave it so long before I post again. It’s always nice & encouraging to hear from you back home if you’re reading so drop me a message to say hello if you so fancy it!

Much love, nads xxx

So recently I’ve been thinking about the challenges of living here and especially of getting married when lots of my friends and family live in England. With that in mind, I thought I’d explain for the people back home, and my Arg readers, to give y’all some more insights about what my experience of living overseas has been like. Then you can all validate my feelings and tell me what a brave girl I am and give me a (virtual) pat on the back 😉

There are various reasons why, for me particularly, it feels important that we get married first in England (if we actually can. It will all depend on COVID obvo). They all kind of link into the same thing so I will try and explain as succinctly as I can without tooo many tangents (although no promises. Love a good tangent).

The main one- life for me in Argentina has involved a fair amount of sacrifices. Now, coming out and living here has been my own choice. No-one forced me and it was completely my decision, but that’s not to say that at times it’s not incredibly challenging and at times it has weighed on me heavily. It’s a tricky thing to manage, as there’s not actually much I can do about it to make things better, especially now there are so many question marks around traveling. It’s also tricky to express it, because I am so so incredibly grateful for the way Noly’s family/church/friends/people here generally have accepted me and helped me in so many ways, and I don’t want to overlook those things and seem ungrateful, but it still can be challenging. Anyways, as well as the more obvious things like not being with my family and friends, missing out on family events, birthdays, weddings and all of those joyous things, it’s also been a challenging time for me in terms of my identity. One doesn’t tend to realise it, but a huge amount of one’s identity goes back to your culture. When suddenly you’re in a different country, surrounded by different cultural norms, values, traditions etc it can feel quite bewildering and also lonely. The way that things are done are different, the things that society values, the expectations. These are all probably things that people who live in that culture don’t even think about, but for an outsider, you learn quickly that you need to abide and learn by these new set of rules and that you have to leave some of the things you’ve always lived by, behind. You have all these observations and things that you’ve noticed that you are comparing with your home culture, but you can’t really share them as people are unlikely to understand, unless they themselves have spent a long time in your home culture or at the very least, overseas.

It does however, mean you learn a lot about yourself! One of the things I’ve realised about myself in this time of being away, is how much I value either: making people laugh or getting people to open up and having a nice good DMC. Since being here this has now changed a little as – sense of humour is different here so it’s hard for me to achieve a good laugh (though I have managed it at times!) and it’s hard for me to have the language for a DMC, but it was interesting for me to learn this about myself!

Along this same line, it’s sad when one culture doesn’t line up with the other and people won’t even realise. This year, I completely forgot about pancake day until it was too late! (I had it belatedly though, dont worry!). Here, they don’t have pancake day. Isn’t that bizarre, from an English mindset?! Last year, I remember Noly mentioning it to someone saying “oh and maybe later we can do pancakes because it’s pancake day in England today!” and the person responded with “Yeah, but we’re in Argentina, not England.”. I understand this line of thinking, but this is hard for me! I may be here in Argentina, but I’m still British and my roots are important to me.

This also feeds into the wedding thing. I remember when I went to Poole on my internship year, one of my friends there one day met my sister and was completely baffled by the realisation that I wasn’t just a lone Nadia- I have family too! It’s just that I’d popped up in his world, without my family there, and so whilst he of course would have realised that there would be some other Glover’s knocking around in the world, he hadn’t ever really thought about it. So again, whilst people knowww that I have my family back home and I talk about them all the time, they’re not really faces yet, just names. (On a sidenote, I always think it will be quite funny when Noly’s family sees him interacting with my family as they’ll see a different thing from him. Nolz, on his best behaviour interacting with the in-laws ehe, it amuses me).

And another one- as I’m sure is the case for many people, especially girls but also boys (don’t wanna be too stereotypical but I think generally speaking this iss the case), I have dreamt of my wedding day my whole life! The things I’d get to do with my mum, my sister, my gal pals and all my lovely people from home, the kinda venue I’d like to have, the dress etc… whereas Nolz doesn’t really have this to the same extent as I do. If he had, I think it could have been a difficult thing for us to navigate! But given the amount of things I’ve given up to be here to help us to move forwards, I think it would be sad if I couldn’t get to do at least a few of these things.

Anyways, I’m sure there are other things that I haven’t put down on paper (well, technically, keyboard to laptop I suppose), but I don’t like to drone away for too long. I’m also mindful that this post could potentially read quite negative. It’s not my intention to be a downer! I just want to be honest with how I’m feeling. And in between all the challenging and hard moments, there are equally amazing and completely joyous moments and everything else in between. I find it staggering, looking back on who I was when I came the very first time around and the various times I’ve come here over the years to who I am now and how much more comfortable I am here, not only in terms of the country but how I feel in my own skin too. True, there are days that require me to grit my teeth and carry on but there are other days of crazy happy fun adventures and I wouldn’t change it.

Okay, this time round I’m actually gonna finish ! Not to be like all the youtubers and influencers and things but #likeandsubscribe… lol joking, but I actually really love knowing who’s reading my blog posts etc so do say hello in the comments/message me if you fancy it.

That’s all for now, xoxo

Well, dear reader. About a billion years ago I was telling you about the first half of our trip to Cafayate and I’m finally getting round to filling you in on the second half.

We’d been there for a week before the hoards joined us!

Okay, so I’m exaggerating here. There were actually only 4 more people who came to join, but it feels like a significantly higher number when you go from 6 people – 10. So the original crew was yours truly, Nolz, Javier, Monica, Cristian & Luci. Then joining us came: Billy, Vivi, Cami & Facu. Billy & Vivi are Luci’s ‘rents, Cami is her sister and Facu is Cami’s boyfriend.

Our second half of the holiday was equally as jam-packed as the first! I’m a little hazy on the order of when we did things since it was over a month ago now but I’ll do my best.

One of the first things we did all together was having luncheon at the Piatelli hotel and vineyard. Pretty fancy place there I might say! And felt right that at said snazzy place, we tried some of the vino. Cafayate is filled with vineyards as the climate is so good for the grapes so the wine was pretty decent I won’t lie. I still feel incredibly sophisticated and adulty drinking red wine!

After a delicious lunch and the obligatory photo session, we split off and us youth went off to the dunes in Cafayate. It was amazing! I’ve never been to dunes that aren’t by the sea and are surrounded by mountains. Again, really beautiful!

The next day we went to the museum in Cafayate. Yawn, right? Well, actually no! Alarmingly, I found it rather fun! (I say alarmingly because I have always found museums, cathedrals, castles etc a right bore, but it seems I’m becoming a little more lenient on them these days). After being smuggled in as an Argentinian (foreigners have to pay 50 pesos more), we made our way round and I actually remember some of the facts! Out of the 365 days of the year, 340 of them are sunny in Cafayate! Was rather glad to have gone to Cafayate since whilst we were away Salta was experiencing torrential rain basically every day, so managed to avoid a lot of the rain! Another fun fact I learnt was to do with the coloured glass of wine bottles. Red wine should really be in green glass bottles. Something to do with UV rays I think. Can’t quite remember the details of that one- you’d have to ask Nolz if you wanted to know with any degree of accuracy hahaha. But anyways, enjoyed wandering around the museum and reading the odd bit or bob!

The following day we had lunch out at the clubhouse and following that we went trekking out into the wild to see some waterfalls. Now, I did this trek 6 years ago when I was here on my gap year (shout out to Team Argentina) and I remember it being absolutely terrifying and incredibly dangerous the first time around. For some reason, it didn’t occur to me to be alarmed or even the slightest bit worried about this until I found myself, once again, scaling the rockface with absolutely nothing of security- no helmets, nothing to keep us attached to the rock, just a guide who would regularly give us a hand and whizz us off a rock or receive us at the other end. On this particular death-defying trip, I didn’t get so stuck as last time, but it was a struggle to get round and I had to step on him in order to make it! And after all that, the waterfall wasn’t even that spectacular! After three, we called it quits and decided to go back to the adults who, thankfully, had decided they’d stop after the second one. I vow to you now, dear reader, that I shall never do that one again! You must remind me of this fact because it was really rather terrifying. Thankfully we were all okay but it doesn’t bear thinking about if anyone had fallen…

Once we were safely out of danger, we popped into town and, to celebrate our survival, promptly ordered some burgers which were, spectacular. Possibly even more so than the third waterfall that we risked our lives to see!

On the Friday we had a pool day at a pool in town, kinda like a lido. This was really fun! And surprisingly not too full of people. We spent the day sunbathing and hanging around in the pool. Facu hired one of the pool doughnut inflatable things and, to the amusement of all in the pool, we spent rather a large amount of time trying to get four people to stand up on the inflatable doughnut at the same time. It was really fun but really hard to do!! And made my legs feel rather like jelly after a while.

That evening us youth went off out to play padel again- the sport I mentioned in my last blog post which is a bit like squash/tennis. Nolz and I lost every game if I recall rightly! But in each game we did manage to get a set or two which was an improvement! And surprisingly, despite losing and not being by nature a sporty lass, I enjoyed it and would like to get more into padel!

The next day was the day to leave. However! Since Cafayate goes past Cabra Corral, we went via this lake and went wakeboarding. And I could remember how to do it-hurrah! Each time we go I get a little step better haha and I could do it for a coupla mins!

And there we have it, there endeth our holidays in Cafayate!

There are some things that seem to endlessly baffle and amaze friends and family back home in England. For one, the time difference. The second, the way the seasons are reversed. To be fair, it is a bit nuts to get one’s head around the fact that whilst you guys were having a snow day, I was having a very lovely pool day. Since I’ve been here a while and I am used to doing the calculations to what time it will be at home and will inherently know what kind of weather it will be at home, it doesn’t blow my mind quuite so much but you do have to get used to it.

So, whilst it’s the depths of winter for everyone at home, here it’s the heights of summer and so it’s (finally), the summer holidays! 🥳 This meant that we got to go on holiday, woop woop! Last year, 2020, from March onwards literally only went out of Salta city centre once for a day to a place that’s an hour away so really really glad we got to get away!

We went to a place called Cafayate. It’s about three and a half/four hours away via car (everyone always says it’s about two hours away but that’s complete lies) and it’s honestly breathtaking. If you look at pictures online you might think you’re looking at the Grand Canyon, it’s got those kinds of vibes. There are mountains everywhere and rocks of loads of different colours! Orange, red- it’s so beautiful! And amazingly, the journey there, whilst wind-y (as in the roads) and a little tedious, is all part of the experience.

Unfortunately, for me the first few days of holiday weren’t so great as I was a bit unwell following the events posted about in my NYE blog. Bad stomach pains, feeling exhausted and energyless and had to be on a boring diet 🙄 which at points made me feel grumpy but eventually got through to the other side and slowly started to improve and feel better.

We were staying in a neighbourhood called La Estancia. If you watched Race Across the World last year, you’ve seen it! Turns out, the hotel that’s in the neighbourhood in La Estancia is the hotel that they go to in Race Across the World! (I vehemently told Nolz he was wrong about this until he confronted me with the google link to prove it and had to somewhat eat my words). But anyways, there are lots of houses owned by Americans in Cafayate apparently and the house we were renting was owned by one such American! I was called upon to speak sweetly in English which I always find inherently bizarre, being in Argentina and being required to speak English. I speak to English in Nolz but no-one else really! And my brain is like, you are in Argentina, you speak Spanish. Very strange needing to speak English. If someone addresses me in English I automatically reply in Spanish, I can’t help it! Always think my voice sounds very weird speaking English again. Anyways, the man we were renting off was great, if not a little quirky as he declared to us that COVID does not exist and he’s tempted to make a NO MASKS sign outside his house. Right. (Always a little tempted to reveal that I’ve had COVID in these kinds of situations but probably not a good idea to get into a debate with the man so decided to keep my mouth shut and not utter a word on the matter.)

Well, over the first week or so we were busy!

In the place we were staying there was a restaurant, tennis court, golf course and bikes to rent so we made use of all these things in the first week or so. The golf course was mainly frequented to by Javier and Cristian who are big on golf, but the rest of us did make a little visit to it one day to what I think is called the putting green (?). Think mini golf but without all the fun little details and places to walk round. In fact, scratch that, think of a putting green and you’ll get the vibes of what it was like 😂

I’d love for you to picture the golf course scene for a moment if you’d indulge me. Beautiful mountains as a backdrop. Serene tranquility on the well kept golf course. A slight hum of happy, contented voices, all practising their swings (or whatever it was they were practising). But hang about.. is that dog digging a huge hole in the middle of the golf course..?! Well, reader, I can tell you that said dog was having an absolutely delightful time. Undoubtedly an even better time than all of us based on the wagging of his tail!

The best thing about him was that he would dig for a couple of moments and then submerge his head completely in the hole (presumably to assess his progress) with his rear out in the open, evaluate for a few seconds and then the process would continue! When the man came along in his high-vis jacket to give the dog a little visit, he promptly made his way to the little lake/pond nearby to clean himself off and submerge himself in the water. .. before returning back to his hole and making it even better.

Asides from our time in la Estancia, we also spent some time in the town centre, browsing the shops and having a little nose around. Cafayate is known generally for its wine and vineyards so I made sure to try some of the Toronto (white wine) ice cream which was very yummy! We also played a sport called paddle. When I tell you what it is it will make you think of squash, though Ive never played squash so my point of reference is tennis. So think of tennis but there are walls to the court and you can use them to your advantage to thwack the wall back to the other team. I really enjoyed paddle!! To begin with I was absolutely hopeless. I feel like, Nolys family are all-rounders. They’re all quite into sport and exercise but they can also dance and play instruments! I would say my family are singers. Which is all very well and good if you want an impromptu four part harmony but it’s not really something that needs to be deployed in this kind of situation. So, unsporty British gal that I am, I was feeling rather intimidated by this whole new sport. When we’d visited the tennis court a couple of days before Nolz was working on me to develop more of a sporty stance. Literally not a sports person at all. However, as the evening progressed, under the guiding advice of Noly’s family I slowly improved and felt more comfortable and whilst I wasn’t that much of an asset on the Nadz and Nolz team (we lost every match however always got at least one if not two! games) I surprisingly enjoyed it! Although I was somewhat frightened of Javier’s serves and at points had to resort to putting my hands over my head in a protective stance when one of those was coming at me. The thing about paddle is that for some reason, it’s really loud when you thwack the ball! Must be something about the rackets. Rather intimidating for newbies like me!

So anyways, the above that I’ve filled you in on is about the first half of the holiday. I was planning on writing it all in one post but hadn’t accounted for my lengthy commentary on the dog in the golf course so think I shall make it into a two-parter and fill you in on the rest of the holiday in the next blog post. See ya then!

Ta ra for now!

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you’ll probably know I’m generally pretty honest. In fact potentially too honest 😂 the thing about me is that I cannot lie. Nor can I tell half truths. It makes me feel all hot and flustered and I just hate it. I’ve always struggled in games that involve this aspect. When we played Among Us for Nolys birthday in September, my heart was literally going crazy and my hands all shaky! (Not even exaggerating. Can’t do that because, y’know, lying. Ask Nolz if you don’t believe me, he witnessed it firsthand! (Predictably I always ended up being one of the characters who had to go after the others, kill em off and then lie about it. Nightmare.)). The same would happen for mafia and cheat when I was younger, though I would feel a slight thrill when I’d successfully managed to do a cheat, but the point still stands that the thought of being anything less than totally honest results in heart palpitations and somewhat sweaty palms. Therefore it seems right to me that I’m truthful and real in my blog, the things that are great and the things that are hard and everything else in between.

With that in mind, I wanted to write about the mixed emotions of getting engaged which I think is generally not really spoken about.

This is not to say that I’m unsure in any way of mine and Noly’s relationship. Getting engaged and married is what I, and we, have wanted for so long. I am totally sure on Noly and we both believe that God is in our relationship. If I was insecure in this I think I probably wouldn’t be writing a blog and posting it on the internet 😂

Therefore it was quite a surprise when after Nolz (finally) popped the question that evening both us felt rather sick! In fact, neither of us finished our food which is a big sign if ever there was one. Very occasionally one of us might not finish but the two of us at the same time? Unheard of. Both big fans of food 😂 (it’s quite funny actually, I have rather a healthy appetite and women here generally (in my eyes) don’t eat all that much, so in group events I often find myself with all the men going for seconds 😂).

I think this came about for several reasons. First of all, getting engaged fundamentally changes the direction of your life, even when that’s what you’ve been working towards for so long, actually being engaged makes it all a bit more real. For us, it brings rather a lot of things to a head- where are we gonna live, what are we gonna do, what’s the plan etc.

The second thing was that on the night we got engaged (12.12.20 if you’re interested), we couldn’t tell anyone! We wanted to tell Noly’s parents, brother and sister-in-law together, and Javier and Cristian were away for the night. And my family were all asleep. So it felt like we had this HUGE big secret that we couldn’t yet share with anyone! Thankfully, the following day we found the time to do some calls home and then that evening we could finally start telling Noly’s family. The more people we told the more this feeling started to go away thankfully!

Anyways, that night after we got engaged, I could not sleep a wink. Waaaayy too many things buzzing around in my mind about wedding logistics, future, the fact that we’d GOT ENGAGED. I googled “how to calm your mind when you’ve just got engaged” and came across a whole load of articles about people feeling anxious after getting engaged. I feel like this response makes SO much sense, for the reasons mentioned above. It’s such a big thing to happen and even if you’ve been waiting and hoping for it to happen for ages, actually getting engaged is suddenly not just a nice theoretical idea of spending forever with someone but actually a reality!

So yeah, I thought I’d write a lil blog post on these reflections. I feel like perhaps people feel that they need to just show the happy, flowery, magical side of things and maybe feel like they can’t share the things that aren’t quite so perfect, but that’s not real life so here we are!

Well, 2021 didn’t start quite how I expected it. Whilst Christmas was tranquil, smooth and very relaxed with no drama, this is not quite what happened on New Year’s Eve!

The day started with the normal flurry of activity associated with hosting a big event. Here, it’s summer so the COVID restrictions are fairly light and we were able to have a family gathering. The day proceeded with all the usual preparations and at about 8.30ish people slowly started arriving and so we moved on to the milling around and chatting kinda phase, taking photos, helping put bits and bobs out etc. During this time, Noly mentioned to me he had a bit of a stomach ache and we assumed it was a hunger stomach ache and thought it likely to go away in a minute when we started eating, but it didn’t. The clock struck twelve, we all went around “salut”-ing (cheers), and looking at the fireworks, before Nolz had to go lie down.

I shall spare you the gory details but poor Nolz spent the evening intermittently freezing cold and with bad stomach pain and the other half of the time running to the bathroom ready to throw up. I spent the time sat with him, in all my gladrags- new dress and shoes and makeup done all nicely ready for the occasion but never mind! At least we had a new years case before he was sick…

Anyways, a coupla hours later he was much better and the next day after a trip to the hospital and lots of antibiotics he was a lot better thankfully.

Fast forward a few days and you’ll never guess what happened to me… It started at church where I started feeling very bizarre… Again, I shall spare you the details, but started with stomach pains, developed to me being sick in the bathroom of the hospital and ended, unexpectedly, with an injection in the rear. Unfortunately the latter blemished my record of never having such an injection. It was quite an experience I’m not going to lie! She literally threw it at me like a dart which was a bit of a shock😂

But anyways, I felt a bit rough for a coupla days, still getting the stomach pains and feeling very weak and tired but eventually I slowly got back to normal, enough that I was able to start enjoying our holiday in Cafayate… However, more about our holiday in the next blog post because I’m such a tease 😉

Reader, I married him. … Okay well not quite yet (I was using the chance to quote Jane Eyre) but as of Saturday 12th December we did get engaged!!!!

A few people have said to me that they’re looking forward to my account of the proposal on my blog. If you’ve read for a while you may have noticed that I’m generally quite open. However! I’m not very good about writing down soppy things and I also don’t want to miss the chance to tell people about the proposal with many’a details so I shan’t go into every single thing here, but I’ll give you a little overview.

So the proposal actually spread over two evenings! The first evening included a trip down memory lane where we went out for dinner to eat at the restaurant where we first properly started getting to know each other over five and a half years ago. The second evening ended with us sat under a tree, all wrapped round with fairy lights (that’s the tree, not the two of us) and me with an engagement ring on my finger 🥰 an engagement ring which fits perfectly by the way! Nolz went to a lot of trouble to work out my ring size and picked an absolutely beautiful ring that I loooove so hats off to the guy!

Despite the fact that I’d been anticipating this day for quite a while, he did actually manage to catch me a bit off guard! I had been anticipating that I’d have my nails all beautifully painted, be wearing a specific dress, that it’d be in the day time and also the location where we’d get engaged so it was rather a surprise when it didn’t happen at all how I’d planned 😂

Well anyways, you may be wondering what our thoughts are on what comes next. Since we are in a rather unusual situation of having half our lives in two different places that are very far away from each other, the plan is to have two weddings. One in England and one in Argentina. So it’s time to get planning!

As our situation is complicated enough, even without COVID, we would really appreciate it if you are a church-goer, if you could keep us in your prayers as we go forward and work out the logistics. And also for us as a couple as we prepare to get married (!!!).

As is the case for everyone this year, 2020 has held a lot of unexpected events for me. Obviously the first one is…

1. COVID. But not only that- dealing with a global epidemic whilst far from home was definitely not something I was expecting from 2020. Also, getting COVID! Whilst it seems like a silly thing to say since it seems to be surrounding us on all sides, it was very bizarre and surreal to actually have the disease that everyone’s talking about!

2. Getting a book published! I had never anticipated I’d write a book and have it published in my life but there y’are!

3. Having an interview with the head of tourism for Salta. We’re best buds now. He even follows me on Instagram 😏

4. Live TV and radio interviews in Spanish!

5. Giving my first ever (joint) preach at the youth group alongside Nolz in Spanish. This was a big challenge!! And I’m not sure I’m ready to do it again just yet 😂

6. Many intense stand offs and battles with the cockroaches who seem to rather like my kitchen cupboards…

7. Success with wakeboarding! Upon my third trip to cobra coral (a lake in Salta about an hour away), I finally managed to stand up on the wakeboard for a good few minutes! This has taken rather a lot of attempts and I am chuffed that I have managed to do so!

8. My own acceptance of my Britishness. This one may sound a little odd, but this year I’ve become more comfortable in showing my Britishness. Last year I just wanted to fit in and didn’t want to stand out or be different. This year I’m way more comfortable and feel comfortable in sharing my British customs 🇬🇧

9. Zoom, zoom, zoom and more zoom…

10. My upcoming second Christmas abroad. Before COVID, my plan had been to stay here for one Christmas and go home for the next. But for obvious reasons, this has turned out to be rather complicated this year so it looks like we’re on for Christmas number 2 here! I’ve actually been struggling quite a lot with December because here there’s not much build up to Christmas and I’ve been missing the English customs and build up to Christmas. If you fancy sending me some Christmas cheer that would be lovely!

11. Progress with Spanish. I can hold my own in a conversation now! For a while now I haven’t needed Nolz with me to help with conversations which is really quite satisfying 😊

12. I’ve bought a number of exciting house bits this year which make me feel very grown up! The most exciting being my sofa! I’ve also bought a fridge/freezer, the world’s tiniest Christmas tree and a plunger (though the less said about that one the better I feel).

13. Spotting a tarantula just strolling along the deck for the first time of my life. It was literally HUGE. For a while I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing it’s big fat furry legs and body just walking along.. Ergghh.

Well, I’m sure there have been some more things that have happened than that but those are the ones I can think of for the moment! I feel like everyone gets a bit reflective when it’s coming up to the end of the year so there are some of mine!

• 

• 

I have a few bits and bobs to fill you in on since last I posted. There’s been some bits I’ve learnt recently and I thought I would share them with you:

1. Ice cream is the solution.
   It’s always great to have the option of ice cream in the freezer, especially for the hot weather that we now have here in Salta!
2. Google is not always right.
   So basically, I’ve been thinking that I should try and be more neighbourly and I hatched up a plan to make some banana bread to take round for my neighbours. Now, when I read that bananas could apparently never go bad, I was a little doubtful. Especially since I’d had my very blackened bananas for three weeks and upon unpeeling them, they smelt suspiciously like alcohol. Well, after consulting Google and scrolling through various comments I felt heartened and encouraged that bananas are always fine for banana bread. The older the better, right? Wrong, as it turns out. I can tell you this- three week old bananas are not okay for banana bread.
3. Cockroaches make a very unpleasant scuttling sound as they run away from you.
   It’s cockroach season here and I have discovered that where I live is very prone to cockroaches. I’m not quire sure where they’re entering from as I’ve covered vents and bits like that with some netting in an attempt to stop them but will have to investigate more thoroughly when I get a moment. Thankfully they have been confined to the kitchen and their main lair seems to be in my kitchen cupboard. I’ve had various showdowns with them. They always manage to take me by surprise though and I must admit that every time I see one I emit an almighty gasp… I do hope my neighbours haven’t heard this sound of terror…
4. Stress can have many different effects on the body.
   This year I have experienced at various different points: daily headaches, migraines, insomnia and now problems with my jaw.
   (Side note: thanks to anyone who’s prayed for me on any of these! Recently I’ve realised that I no longer get daily headaches- I think down to my blue light filtery glasses (not sure the official term for these kinds of glasses), I haven’t had any migraines lately and my insomnia seems to be a little better now).
5. Physio facial massages are not always pleasant.
   As mentioned, I currently have a problem with my jaw. I went to the doctors to find out if there was a reason why I’m now experiencing tinnitus, and instead of finding any problems with my ears, she noticed that my jaws aren’t doing great. I think I’d just got used to them cracking and clicking when I eat and I’m not sure how long it’s been happening for, but they’re really not in a good state!
   She told me to go and see a physio for facial massages. Lovely, thinks me, how relaxing that will be. Boy was I wrong. Said massages were actually rather painful as they were just agitating my jaw! I’ve had two sessions now though and the second session wasn’t so bad. It seems that my jaw’s a bit better.
6. A non functioning jaw is actually rather annoying.
   It really amazes me how well our bodies generally work. If you’re like me, you may not have realised quite how key one’s jaw is. I have a new appreciation for my jaw since it’s been playing up. Small things like eating and yawning are rather difficult when one’s jaw isn’t very happy.
7. My level of Spanish has improved sufficiently so that I am able to make small talk with my physio whilst she plays around with my face!
8. When it rains here, it pours.
   Last week there was an almighty thunderstorm which resulted in rather a few leaks and puddles around my flat. After having spoken to various people, it seems that when it rains here, everyone’s houses have leaks and puddles. Nolz told me that there is just no way that houses can take that amount of rain and that’s just the way it is.
9. It’s possible to make spiders jump.
   Since I’ve returned to my flat, I’ve noticed that a little spider has taken up residence in my bathroom. He always stays in the same spot and I’ve grown quite fond of him would you believe it. The other day I gave him a bit of a shock by making a sudden noise and I kid you not he jumped with the shock of it 😂
10. Adult life included a lot of cleaning, sorting and cooking.
    Why is it that there’s always something that needs to be done!
11. I may not be as good at multitasking as previously thought.
    Church has started back up again here and after some persuasion I decided I’d try to pick up the guitar again and play in band. I think this may be a little beyond me however! Singing in Spanish and playing at the same time is super hard ! Not sure if I’m going to be able to do it but will keep on trying!

Well, there we are. That’s my lil bit of news for the mo. Love to you all 💜

I officially have antibodies! 🥳 So with that you officially know that I have had COVID. I confess I’ve been keeping it under my hat for a little while, as I didn’t want people to worry and I also didn’t want to write about it before I was well and truly through with it. There was also some weirdness with it all because one test came back saying I didn’t have it, though I’d had a lot of the symptoms, so it was all a bit confusing for a while! Then, the second blood test I had showed that I had had it and in fact have a coupla antibodies hanging around. But it was all very much up in the air whilst we were waiting for more time to pass so we could have more tests.

It’s kinda weird that I’ve had the virus that the whole world is talking about. It’s a bit surreal. That being said, I got quite a low-key strain of it so it wasn’t too bad, hence why my antibody count is quite low, but it’s there nonetheless.

For me, it started with a sore throat and a headache. I didn’t really pay all that much attention to these as at the time (beginning of September), I was getting almost daily sore throats and headaches. Pretty standard for me over the winter here and my day-to-day involves a lot of screen time and speaking. Anyways, I then had a bit of a dodgy tum which isn’t a confirmed symptom, but people have found that sometimes people get this too. Again, stomach pain isn’t that unusual for me so didn’t think too much of it. Then on Monday, I had a splitting headache and slowly my temperature started rising yet I felt very cold. Once I was finished for the day, I packed up my bags and my little flat again, and off to the Matus’ I went. Upon arrival, I went straight to bed but not without having another round of temperature and oxygen level checks. I was on the edge of a fever and not feeling that good (though not completely terrible) but slept straight through the night and woke up and temperature had normalised and was left with an awful head. Over the next few days the symptoms slowly started shifting. It was really weird, I’d feel better in one thing but something else would pop up and I’d feel worse in that aspect. My head got better, sore throat remained but then my sense of taste dulled down. Then the next day there was a weird feeling with my chest, as if something was pressing down on it. That was the symptom that scared me the most as I wondered if that feeling was gonna grow and grow and I’d get some of the more severe symptoms, but thankfully it didn’t and slowly my symptoms started going away and clearing and I was just left feeling rather tired. I never had a cough nor body pains.

The weird thing about it all, is that Nolys had three tests in this time and they’ve all come back as negative. Nolz and I were never socially distant because the doctor told us that given our situation, if I had it, Nolz would have it too. But nope. Personally, I think he’s had it, was asymptomatic but therefore his antibody count is so low it’s as if he hasn’t had it, but anyways, who knows. Weird weird weird.

Another odd thing with all this is that although I’ve had it, nothing very much has really changed. I mean psychologically speaking it’s nice knowing I have a coupla antibodies knocking around, but people say that the antibodies don’t necessarily stay with you for that long. Also, I barely have any. You had to have over 1.0 for them to be picked up in the test and I had 2.0. This is in comparison to Nolys dad who had a worse strain of covid than I did and the antibody count was at 100. So even though I have antibodies, perhaps I could still pick up a different strain of it? Therefore I still stay in most of the time. I suppose that even if I can’t be infected with it again for a bit, then I could probably still transport it, right? And need to take care of Nolz and everyone else who hasn’t had it.

So anyways, that’s probably the biggest piece of news that’s happened in my life lately. Other than that, just pootling on like usual. Although, those of you who are pray-ers I’d appreciate your prayer! I’ve been sleeping really badly for the last month or so, often waking up at 4/6am because there’s a coupla cockerels who live nearby me with a faulty inner clock who make a racket every morning. And if it’s not the cockerels, then it’s the dogs. Anyways, I’ve been running on very little sleep for quite a while which is not ideal and isn’t great for me physically or emotionally. So would appreciate prayers. Thanking you in advance! Much love to all, over and out xxx