Just a month after the last time I’d been back in the UK, I once again found myself hopping on a plane up north to England in order to attend a rather important event: Jess and Adam’s wedding!

I’ve known Jess since we were quite young, as we worked together on a drama project together back in the day and then worked together at Burnley Youth Theatre for quite a good while. I then received the invitation through the post last year and was super excited to attend what promised to be a fabulous celebration.

After flying back with Danni from Madrid, I had an early night as the very next day was the big wedding. Awaking early, I dressed myself as quickly as possible in order to not be late to the wedding: I’d had very clear instructions from Amber that I’d to be there bang on time at 1pm.

I put the effort in and was out the door on time in order to rock up at the venue just before 1pm. I waved goodbye to my parents and they headed off as I headed inside to check out the lovely rural venue: a barn in the Ribble Valley.

I followed the signs round to the entrance to the barn, entering into the space for the ceremony itself, set out with plants, lights, and some lovely views over the valley. There was nobody there, though, so I headed further inside and past the dining area and the bar, both of which were also empty.

Figuring that Amber had just told me to be there half an hour before everyone else – knowing me as she does – I set out to find a staff member to ask where I could leave my stuff before the celebrations began. Coming across a woman in the corner of the room, I let her know that I was here for Jess and Adam’s wedding, and her response left me frozen: there was no wedding there today!

She also mentioned the name of another venue, The Out Barn, which was when it fully dawned on me that she wasn’t joking and that I had, indeed, come to the wrong place. A blind panic then set in, as my parents had already headed off and the lady informed me that a taxi could take up to 45 minutes to arrive thanks to the rural setting.

As you can imagine, I was furious at myself: I’d managed to be on time, but I’d gone to the wrong bloody venue!

After much panicking and frantic phone calls, my parents showed back off and whisked me the short ten minutes in the car off to the correct location. I arrived flustered and half an hour late, but at least I had a good story to tell. Also, it turned out that Amber really did know me: the ceremony didn’t kick off until 2pm.

I spent a fabulous half an hour recounting my dramatic tale and catching up with some old pals that I hadn’t seen since secondary school about ten years ago, but we were eventually ushered into the main space and seated for the ceremony to begin.

The ensuing day was an absolute blast, with the picturesque setting and the intimate size of a group of great friends and some hilarious new people that I had the pleasure of meeting. With the tears of the main ceremony over, we grabbed drinks and began lunch, which was then followed by a night of singing, dancing, and having a big loud celebration as only us ex-theatre lot know how to!

The wedding was an absolute blast from start to finish.

The next day I had a somewhat heavy head and a distinct lack of energy – something I should have thought about beforehand! It was nothing that an early breakfast cooked up by Jess’ dad couldn’t fix, however, so we all sat around and recollected the highlights of the previous evening whilst gorging on bacon, sausages, and black pudding.

Once I’d recovered and been sent home with a generous wedge of the delicious wedding cake, I rested for the rest of the day to recover from the crash I’d had after so many days of fun with some of the best people I know.

I can’t thank Jess enough for inviting me to form part of her gorgeous wedding, and extend once again my congrats to Mrs & Mr Barrett as they begin married life together. Also a shout out to Amber for whipping me into shape, and my parents for putting up with my chaos. Oops!

I’d then a week to work back at home from the UK, but this had been cut short in advance thanks to an event with a client that I’ll have to go into more detail about some other time. I had three evenings in the surprisingly sunny British summer weather to enjoy though, and so spent the most of the time available enjoying the countryside with my parents.

And thus concluded a very short five days in England. I’d liked to have stayed a bit longer to enjoy the unexpectedly warm weather and great company, but a work event called, as well as plenty of other plans that I’ll have to get into shortly.

For now, I sign off with this photo of me enjoying the great outdoors and pretending to be one of the very farmers who used to scare me off as we played in these very fields as young kids. How time flies!

When I was young, rumour was that the farmer had a gun!

In between a couple of trips to Asturias and after a week back in the UK, I’ve also been up to plenty of other stuff here in Madrid. As I was looking over my photos, I noticed that a lot of them have had somewhat of a musical theme, and so I’ve grouped them all together in this quick little post.

My first little musical adventure took me, Sara, and Marta to a club, where live acts accompanied a wild programme of shows and events every twenty minutes. We had an absolute blast, even heading out for a few vermouths the day after to “balance the pH”…

Another lovely moment saw Thuy head back over to visit Spain for a few days. Naturally, we had to meet up for lunch, and had a lovely meal at a spot just a few streets away from the office where I first met her when I moved to Spain for the first time back in 2016. How time flies!

We also nipped into the office for a cheeky snoop around…

That week I also had another meal date, this time with Kevin, James, and Sara. Kevin and James were stopping in Madrid for the night before grabbing a plane back over to the US, and so we all arranged to meet up and have an evening meal at one of my favourite spots. We had an absolute hoot of a time, enjoying dish after dish whilst laughing over some hilarious stories and some strong gin and tonics…

The Cibeles Palace looked absolutely resplendent in its pride colours.

My next musical event took place when Danni came over for a flying visit. She arrived on a Thursday as I left work, but we were both back out of the house by 6:30pm in order to head to the north of the city and the WiZink Center. We arrived at the huge stadium early and in earnest to see a band which formed a massive part of my childhood: Queen!

The show was insane fun and an absolute joy – we both left absolutely hoarse, hungry, and – in my case – dying for the toilet! This was nothing that a McDonalds couldn’t fix, and so we had some tipsy chips on a bench before heading back home to rest for our next day.

We spent the day after the concert wandering the city streets, having lunch at one of my favourite spots, and then heading out for some drinks in the evening. Our original plan was to head to some of the pride concerts, but we wound up so deep in conversation on a terrace that before we knew it it was midnight!

The next day was Saturday, and we’d both to be up relatively early in order to grab a plane together back to the UK, as I’d yet again to head back to my native country for another and rather exciting event – but I’ll have to get to that next time. I’m so busy recently I can’t get these posts out on time!

I leave this post with a silly anecdote which will hopefully be as amusing for you all as it was stressful for me…

I was recently bought some new sunglasses by my mum: an actual decent pair of sunnies after years of using either cheap pairs that I’d then lose or break or, as was the case with my last pair, sunglasses that accidentally stolen from my auntie. Shout out to her for putting up with my clumsiness!

Speak of clumsiness, I was now in possession of a (relatively compared to what had come before) expensive pair of sunglasses, so the theory was that I’d be a bit less clumsy and not leave them around/sit on them/drop them every five minutes. Said theory was thoroughly disproven when, during my first trip up to Asturias, I left them on the table of the bar that I’d said goodbye to Kevin at. Thankfully he noticed them sitting there and took them back home with him, and so I was able to pick them up just a couple of weeks later when I returned up north.

Then, just two days later, I took them out again to the restaurant where I’d met up with Kevin, James, and Sara. As we left, my lesson had been learned, and I grabbed them from the table. The problem came when I popped them in the basket of the bike I used to get home – even as I placed them in it I did think to myself that there was a good chance that I’d forget to take them back out.

At about 2am that night I woke up for a glass of water, and for some reason something clicked in my brain and I suddenly remembered: crap – the sunglasses!

Well, you can imagine the sight as I, in some Christmas pyjamas that I had lying around, went running down the street to the bike station in a blind panic-fuelled hope that they’d still be there. As I arrived and realised that neither the glasses nor the bike I’d used were there, my heart sank. There was nothing to do but head back home, where I send a desperate email to BiciMAD (the public bike service here) asking them to return them on the off chance they were found, quoting the number of the bike I’d used after searching for the it in the history section within the app.

It was at that moment that it suddenly occurred to me that there might just be a way to search for the location of every bike by its number, and so I headed back into the app to see if I could wrangle the location of the bike I’d used – and lo and behold, I found it!

You know what happens next – the pyjamas went back on and I was once again power walking down the street and back to the same bike station, but this time it wasn’t to look for a bike – it was to ride one! I grabbed the first working one I could find, and off I went, speeding around the empty streets of Madrid at 3am in my festive PJs.

Arriving at the station containing the bike I’d used the evening before, I found the bike in question and – miraculously – the sunglasses were still in the basket!

The frustration from earlier was replaced with elation as I headed back home – on a bike again, of course. The elation didn’t help me sleep though, and so the next day I was tired and grumpy – but at least I had my sunglasses…

With Madrid turning up the heat and a couple of events to attend, I recently found myself flying back over to the UK for a weeklong visit to be spent with friends and family. I’d to work remotely from there on the weekdays, but we managed to pack a whole lot in during the weekends and the evenings!

After being picked up from the airport by my parents, the trip started before I even had chance to nip back home and leave my stuff off. We headed straight for an outlet, where I’d to pick up a few bits and bobs – some decent sunglasses to face the Spanish summer, some new boots for my travels later this year, and even an outfit for a friend’s wedding.

Shopping over, we headed back home and through my village, which was resplendent with Union Jacks to mark the Jubilee celebrations that had just finished as I arrived. The abundance of flags and the evening sun on an unexpectedly warm day led me to take a few pictures around the place – as I usually travel for Christmas, it’s not often I get to see the place in this light.

I then unpacked my bag upon arriving back at my childhood home, testing out my new boots before putting on some older, much muddier ones in order to head out for a walk around the countryside. This evening wander took us over the fields and around the two very pretty villages close to where my parents live.

I didn’t stay out too late though, as I’d to be in bed relatively early in order to be up bright and early for the next day’s plans – we were off to Alton Towers!

To celebrate Danni’s birthday, she’d decided to take Abi and me down to Alton Towers, a theme park that I was obsessed with when I was younger but which I hadn’t been to since me and my mum had a random day out there back when I was at university.

We arrived under some threatening looking skies, but this didn’t bother us in the slightest – we were in high spirits and ready to take on all of the rides that we could squeeze in. After taking a few photos down Towers Street, the entrance area of the park, we jumped on the first of many, many rides that day.

With it being a Sunday and with the sky threading to rain on us the whole time we were there, there was barely anybody else at the theme park. This worked massively in our favour, as we managed to jump on ride after ride with laughably short wait times. All this in a theme park somewhat infamous for its long queues – it was great!

After my first ever ride on Wicker Man, the wooden rollercoaster you can see above, we decided to all chip in and buy an on-ride photo pass so that we could grab all of our silly on-ride photos throughout the day. As I say, the wait times were practically non-existent, so we managed to re-ride plenty of our favourites in order to get just the right photo…

The day wore on but we kept up our rhythm, managing to grab a few rides on one of my favourite rides, Nemesis, which we thought would be closed and so we were chuffed to bits to see it open. However, the most terrifying ride had to be the spinning barrels, which had me screaming the whole way round and actually left me quite bewildered and dizzy. Childs ride my arse!

We had an absolute blast of a day at Towers, I genuinely don’t think I’ve laughed and giggled so much in one single day for quite a while. We finished the day with a pit stop at McDonalds for tea before Danni dropped me back off at home, tired and wet and exhausted but with a huge grin on my face – and not just because I’d been corrected on The Smiler…

The next day I was back at work, albeit remotely from my childhood bedroom. After the working day was over, I headed out with my parents and sister, who’d joined us from Sheffield, for another quick walk around the fields. We had a proper good wander, heading past two reservoirs and spending a good couple of hours out whilst the sun set over the landscape.

The following day was spent as a family, as we headed off to Yorkshire to inter my grandma’s ashes. This was the primary reason for my visit over to England, and served as a lovely last sendoff after she died last year.

After the short service, me and my parents, sister, auntie, and uncle headed over to York, where we’d booked a table to have afternoon tea at Betty’s. We spend the afternoon enjoying our tea, sandwiches, and pastries, before spending some time shopping and snooping around York’s lovely winding streets.

York’s lively atmosphere paired with a lovely day made for a great afternoon out.

I soon got tired, and took to taking some photos from where I sat.

I then spent the rest of the week working from home, with the my evenings spent chatting with my parents, walking around my village, and a cheeky evening meal out with Jess and Amber in a cool restaurant in Burnley that I’d never been to before.

When Friday rolled around, I headed over to Leeds, where I was finally reunited with Emily and had the chance to meet her and Lincoln’s dog, Lando. Lincoln wasn’t around, but his mum was, and so the four of us (Lando included) spent an evening in before spending the Saturday wandering around the nature that’s on Leeds’ doorstep.

From there, Em kindly gave me a lift over to Manchester airport, where I’d been told to arrive hours in advance to avoid absolute chaos at security. After literally walking straight through security, I had plenty of time to kill on the other side, and so started work on this very, very delayed blog post whilst sitting in the departure lounge – or in the case of Terminal 3 of Manchester airport, departure corridor.

Saying this gives me pause to think that maybe it’s time to write another whiny quip about a very specific life experience, just like I did after completing jury duty – give “Purgatory” a read if you haven’t already.

And with that, I end my quick week spent back home in the motherland. I managed to cram a lot of stuff in without taking any time off work, so I’ve to extend my thanks to Erretres for their refreshingly flexible approach to hybrid working. I much prefer to work in the office, but having the option to work from wherever you want really is the future.

Let’s see where this remote working will take me next…