Monthly Musings: August 2025
ft. a recap of where i disappeared to last month
Oh friends, hello! I have missed this space so much. It makes me sad knowing a whole month has passed without posting, but there was simply no time or energy. Last month was, without a doubt, the hardest of my life. I might go into more details at a later stage, but essentially: one morning I was fine, and the next morning I was being rushed into the emergency department at 28-weeks pregnant with pains from what eventually turned out to be a burst appendix. After being admitted as a patient, I spent the next two and a half weeks in a hospital bed dealing with a myriad of unpleasant fallouts that resulted from my appendectomy. Less than a week after finally getting home, I was back in hospital overnight - the maternity hospital, this time - for suspected broken waters. I was released the very next day, but my goodness, it has been a lot.
Lest we forget the trauma of the last month for even a second, the follow-up appointments scheduled for the not so distant future are aplenty, and every single day a nurse rings and/or comes out to the house to change wound dressings. It has been a grand total of 4-days since we stepped out of one hospital or another, and I have never been more emotionally or physically exhausted in my entire life. I’m really hoping we can leave all of that in July, and focus on healing and relaxing the next few weeks.
Please find a short list of musings for the month ahead littered below. It will largely make little difference to you, but just fyi, most of what’s written below was started back in June for the July post that never happened, and I’ve updated and added to it post-hospital stays. Enjoy, friends.
monthly musings: august 2025
New on the baby bulletin: Baby Bean is 32 and a half weeks now. The bump is in full-swing and, mercifully, the baby is happily kicking away almost non-stop; their apparent favourite place to kick happens to be justttt under the worst of my laparoscopic wounds. Despite everything we’ve been through, all of Bean’s tests and scans show they are resilient and healthy and amazing, and none of us have ever been more grateful for anything ever. Now to just keep it up for the next for weeks 🤞
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I really didn’t have the energy to do anything in hospital other than stare at the ceiling and wait for time to pass — but Husband and I did spend a couple hours making a master list of everything we plan to cook & freeze before the baby comes. Lasagnas, curries, soups, etc. Hopefully my newly-diagnosed anemic self will muster up the energy for cooking again soon!
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Husband and I celebrated our 10-year anniversary together at the end of July. Initially, we’d planned to spend the weekend up in Ballycastle exploring the Causeway Coast — but obvz the world had other plans for us. When I realised Ballycastle was not going to happen, I lowered my expectations to a date day in some of our favourite local haunts, before inevitably lowering them again to just please god not being in hospital anymore. Thankfully, I made it out one day before our anniversary, and, although not the weekend we planned, it was still pretty perfect. Klimt cards, flowers, an extremely brief hobble to the end of our road, gouda cheese, and a delicious roasties + chicken Kiev dinner. Here’s to many more decades together, my love ✨
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Before everything hit the fan, June saw me sharing my latest travel guide: 48 Hours in Bristol, England. Husband and I were very pleasantly surprised by Bristol; the food scene was amazing, the tourist attractions & museums were spot on, and the place was generally just a lot more beautiful than I was expecting. On the whole, would recommend!
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June also saw me sharing my annual Summer Bucket List. Filled with items big and small, I thankfully started ticking off items before our world turned upside-down. Thus far: we celebrated my Bestie’s engagement, both as a BFF trio — catch the adorably cheese-tastic video here — and also at their actual engagement party the night before I started having pains / we’ve started the process of ready-ing Baby Bean’s room / I got my new passport with my married name! / we celebrated our 10-year anniversary to the best of our ability / and my want-to-eat list is in full swing. Did you make a SBL?
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Apparently overrun with energy and enthusiasm in June, I also somehow found the time to update the blog logo and design slightly. I added a little splash of colour behind the logo, seen at the very top of the page above, and created some colourful dividers to break up big blocks of texts in my longer posts. It’s just two small little changes, but I enjoy the fun pop of colour they bring to the site. Do you like the new addition or no?
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In an ideal world, I had intended to share my Gdańsk guides with you last month — but in all honesty neither of them are anywhere near finished and just the thought of working on them at the moment makes me want to take a nap. I’m hopeful my energy levels will return to normal-ish soon, but in the meantime, please be patient with me. The guides will be worth the wait, promise!
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Obviously, our movie watching last month was non-existent, and since getting out of hospital we’ve mostly been watching easy-viewing TV shows: Dawson’s Creek, Gilmore Girls, and S3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty. The first two are tried and tested faves, but I’m not sure how I’m feeling about S3 of TSITP?! The storyline has gone slightly too off-piste from the books for me, but I’m hoping the wrongs will right themselves soon enough. What are you watching?
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The sheer outpouring of love and support from friends, colleagues, family members and loved ones over the last month was honestly crazy. I was overwhelmed with so much love all month long, from the most unexpected of places! Whether you visited, texted, rang, sent flowers or Hug in a Box, dropped a note, or even thought of mine and Baby Bean’s plight for one second, thank you so much! It really means the world ❤️
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Lastly, I would absolutely have not made it through the last month without the rock solid support of Husband and my whole family, but especially my mom. Not a single day passed by without either of them coming in to sit with me, and, even though I was so sad I barely talked some of the days they visited, their presence made me feel much calmer. Mom & Rob, thank you for everything over the last month, I am so eternally grateful for everything you’ve done for me and Baby Bean❤️
There we have it, friends, Monthly Musings: August 2025. Apologies if it was a little self-indulgent, but I feel I’ve earned that right. I’m cautiously optimistic that all is settling down and we’ll get back to some semblance of normalcy soon, but we shall see. For right now, it feels good to be back in this space again, so thank you for joining me here.
I hope we all have an easy August,
Hugs,
Vicki xo
PS, please enjoy the above photo from one of my first walks down the hospital corridor post-surgery with Husband. Wearing my finest baggy t-shirt + comfy pants, sick-bag in hand, canula protruding from my wrist, slippers on foot, with a nearly two week old head of unwashed hair. Hospital chic!
related posts
August 2024 // August 2023 // August 2022
August 2021 // August 2020 // August 2019
Welcome back! xo