The word is a very exciting place

 I figured it was time for a little break away. Though to be brutally honest, I feel like that all the time! But me and James had a long weekend booked off, and we decided that we now felt comfortable enough to leave the country. That's right, we were heading abroad! We didn't want to go far, and we only had a long weekend, so we decided to go to Amsterdam! And it was so brilliantly easy, which is what we like. We started on the train to London, except ours was cancelled and we were shoehorned onto the next one and arrived late. This was not the easy part. I swear the British railway system is falling apart. Anyway, we decided to spend an afternoon & evening in London.

 By August, the temperatures were becoming a little more bearable, and it seemed like the worst of the heatwave was over.  It meant I had a bit more energy to do things other than working. I swear the heat just saps your energy. I spent time baking, making these mini pasties with a spicy beef mince filling in them when I had the family round one evening. This was before I cooked them, and I had to move fast before I could take a picture of them baked. By the time I'd taken the second tray out of the oven, two were already missing and James was complaining his mouth was burnt. So I had to quickly try and hide them, which I did in the conservatory on a shelf with a fly net over them so we still had some left for dinner!

 July was sweltering, and I mean sweltering. It also felt incredibly muggy too, unlike the more tolerable dry heat we had the previous two summers. I felt like I was constantly sweating buckets all the time. Correction, I was sweating buckets all the time. It felt like I was going to drown in the puddle of my own sweat. I've probably grossed you out now, I promise I won't mention it again!

 I feel like the posts about coming home are the worst post's of all! Knowing that you're returning back to the daily grind, and that work yet again take over life. We spent the morning in York, having a wander through the Shambles, before taking a quick picture of Yorkminster for good luck.

I know saying the greatest abbey is quite a statement, but we very well may have found it? I'm talking about Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, and it may just be the greatest abbey. The funniest thing is, it lulls you into a false sense of security. You are walking through the field from the ticket office to it, and you can't see anything, and you're thinking, I can't see any abbey, have we got the wrong place? And then, to our absolute delight, we come to a valley, and look into it, and there, is the greatest abbey.

 Yorkshire is just such a fantastic place to be. For a start, it's so beautiful. Rolling hills, natural habitats, sprawling farms, it's a delight to behold. It's also interesting, so much history and culture. Everytime we go, we get to experience such a varied mix of things, and today was no exception. Today we experienced everything we love, historical ruins, beautiful sighs, seafront amusements and ice creams. What could possibly be better?

 At the end of June we had booked a week off, and I purposely booked the week off before the school holidays begin. First of all, because I don't want to be charged extra for it, be surrounded by screaming kids and stressed parents. I just want to say to them, why did you bother to do this? You're all clearly having a really shitty time. Call it a day and go home and learn to love staying at home. Secondly, I also don't think it's fair for me to. If there was something in particular I wanted to do or see, then yes I would. But I think as someone without kids, it wouldn't be fair for me to possibly cause a parent childcare issues if they weren't able to get the week of.

 June was a strange month, the heat was really getting to me, I felt like energy wise, I was grinding to a halt. Work was also quite quiet, there wasn't an awful lot going on for a change, which meant I was catching up on all the odd little bits and bobs that I had been neglecting recently. Which I think then made me feel like I hadn't achieved much. But anyway, I didn't do much outside of work either to be fair. It had been my birthday, which always makes me feel glum. Nothing like a yearly reminder that you are getting older and closer to croaking it I guess!

 Hello and welcome to my post all about the aftermath of Eurovision, where I talk about what went well, what didn't go so well, and what I think about everything. After all, I've got opinions & a blog, why not put them both to good use? I think the first thing I want to talk about is the standard of entries this year. I feel like this year was one of the best we've had for the past couple of years. We had several different and interesting styles of music and performances, and for the grand final, over over half of the entries I thought deserved points from myself. This was the first time in a couple of years that I really struggled to make my top ten up and assign points. Even now, I feel like I could swap some of them around!

Ciao and hello! Welcome back to my review of the 2022 Eurovision Song contest! In the first part, myself and James gave our reviews of each of the competing songs. In this part, I will be reviewing the interval acts, the voting and of course, commenting on the winner. Plus I will be revealing our results too, and we shall see what that does to the leaderboard! So without further ado, let's get started!