28 Days Grace: February.

February *finally* rolled around, after I'd been waiting for what seemed like forever. And oh boy, it was an action-packed month. 

I'd booked holiday with my previous job for the second week of the month, so naturally I'd crammed in a shit ton of activities and adventures in these few days...then after leaving that job, I was abruptly faced with this one busy week looming almost ominously in its volumes of excitement. Idk, it was daunting. The many varying locations and time pressures and new things, so many new things...I took it one day at a time, and that worked alright. But I've learned my lesson - never over-schedule, Grace. Keep things loose. Factor in chill time, yeah? 

My new favourite things this month were... 

• Instagram stories. I wasn't sure at first, but have now genuinely started taking time to watch them, to admire some of my friends' wicked ways with filters and font. I'm trying to post on mine more, but am so-super-crazy aware that over 400 people on average will look at it every day. And yeah, that's only a third of my follower count but geezzzz it's still a lot, no?! I'll try not to let that stop me, though. And you can bet I'll work hard to make myself seem more interesting... 

• Dev Patel. I mean, dude. I've been a fan since his 'Skins' days obviously, but seeing him acting his delightfully pert butt off in 'Lion' was just...indescribable. The film itself was magnificent and important and may have made me cry approximately 5 times. I was sobbing my heart out when the lights came up. Dev, I'm yours any time. Your Aussie accent was particularly exciting. Call me. 

• Non-fiction. Goddamn. See my reading wrap-up post for more info, but basically I bathed in the wondrous words of real life and smart specific educational musings and ughh, yes. 

• Podcasts. I'm late to the party, but now I'm bingeing on all things Pandolly and Meg-John & Justin and Desert Island Discs. My favourite recent listen was Nadiya Hussain's episode of the latter podcast - my goodness, that woman is a stunner. 

A favourite person this month was...

Actually, there were two. My pals Rikki and Mel who I met in the early years of uni separately - now engaged and adorable - visited my little town for a whole weekend and I showed them the many wonders of 1066 country; cliffs, old towns, pubs, independent coffee shops, cakes, country lanes, and of course we had to have a night in with my fam watching trashy TV and sampling custard creams. 

And now, the exciting news this month was... 

• The biggest news perhaps, was that my brain - that troublesome scamp - was declared 'stable' by my neuro-oncologist at The Royal Marsden in Sutton. My regular check-up scans that until now have been every 3 months since my course of radiotherapy in late 2015 will now be every 6 months, and I expect someday they'll be a year apart...that's rather exciting, isn't it? Progress! Good work, brain. 

• I wrote about the aforementioned hospital in a post for The Olive Fox to mark World Cancer Day on the 4th. It was the very least I could do for that magical place. 

• I was bra-less for most of the month. This began as I needed to give my fresh sunflower air and space to heal (oh yeah, I got a new tattoo!) and then turned into a 'omg this is amazing, can I keep it up?!' thing. (The answer was yes. I could. Proud of me.)

• I took part in the epic Harry Potter tweeting @ the moronic muggle Piers Morgan; I only managed a page and a half of the Philosopher's Stone, alas, before the ignorant idiot blocked me...but it was an honour getting to help this fantastic movement.
  (For those of you who don't know why this is a thing...read here!) 

I bought 0 books. Wow, I was very well-behaved this month! 
Then again, I did receive a lot of exciting ones in the post - namely 404 INK's 'Nasty Women' and Laura Jane Williams' second book 'Ice Cream for Breakfast'...oh, and Hannah Witton's sexy non-fic 'Doing It'! 

I drank 37 cups of coffee. I somehow forgot to drink any for 2 days while on holiday...needless to say I was knackered and had killer headaches. Never again. Although after that I may try to cut down to just 1 a day - which seems to be a hot new trend among lifestyle bloggers - because last month I drank over 40 cups and yeah, wake up call. Literally.  

My favourite cuppa would have to be at the airport, sitting waiting to go through the gate and get on my plane home. It was small and black yet cost me 4 euro, but after a couple days without any caffeine it was 100% worth it. 

I attended 2 bookish events in London. One was Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan's 'We Come Apart' launch event in Waterstones TCR. Another was the infamous #DrinkYA, always an important event in the UKYA community - and to me personally, having started attending these monthly gatherings while having radiotherapy in 2015. 
(I'm expecting more bookish events in the city come March - after all, my internship is in Publicity!) 

My February reading was a triumph. I learned so much and I laughed so much...I thought so much. As I said before, read all about it right here - and soon you'll find out what my reading plan is for March! How exciting. 

Yes, so, February was good. Mostly. I got shit done, I tried new things, I travelled places and saw fantastic people (see above: the utter babes I always stay with in Berlin). 
I made the best of my silly situation, and I kept busy. I am excited for March, because it's gonna be full-on and terrifying but also exciting and new and yeah. Stay tuned for that, my friends. I reckon my next end of month post will be written either when half-asleep and knackered out, or sleep-deprived and high on caffeine and purpose. We shall see.