Introducing Myself… Somerset, Alpacas, Strength Training, Future

I'm new to Steemit so just thought I'd introduce myself to you guys! Hello from Somerset, UK. Land of Cider, Tractors, Beautiful Countryside & Glastonbury Festival !

No I don't live close enough to the festival to get free tickets but yes I have been going since I was a child and have even wangled ways to get in for free - including one year when I was jammy (read: lucky) enough to get a VIP Backstage Hospitality pass the week before the festival began, as a Guest of Primal Scream because I was cheeky enough to ask the saxophonist down the pub one evening if they had any spares going!
Yes my Dad is a Farmer - an Alpaca Farmer ! Here's a picture of me with our of our Alpacas.. I hear they are big in Japan….?

And no, you cannot ride them. Especially not that little one, it's a baby Alpaca, otherwise known as a Cria.

Fun Alpaca Fact: They smell really nice. Their fleece is on a par with Cashmere in terms of softness and warmth. And they make little humming noises.

A little bit about me… I grew up in Somerset but left home at 17, travelled around the world and moved to London for 7 years to study and work. I then had my daughter, Elvie, when I was 25 (she is 3 now).
It was becoming impossible to live there with a good quality of life and survive financially, especially as a single mum.
I left the relationship with my daughter's father when she was 1 year old, which was the most difficult, harrowing & yet the best & most necessary decision of my life.

I wanted a better life for my daughter with cleaner air, less pressure on both of us and more connection to nature. I wanted her to see the stars ! I remember the first time she looked up at night time in Somerset and could see the stars….that was an amazing feeling as she had never seen them before. I want to create a really good, wholesome & happy life for us down here and that is what I am striving to do right now.

I had missed the nature so much and laid back pace of life here as opposed to the busy, dirty, polluted, competitive, expensive city. When I first moved to London in 2009 to study at London College of Fashion, I was living in an attic room of a beautiful Mews house in Kilburn, North West London and my rent was £350 a month including bills I think…and now a room in London is around £700-900 a month!!! It's crazy. I couldn't wait to get back to Somerset.
We're living close to one of the most 'hipster' towns in the UK which has been featured on The New York Times Travel, Evening Standard….etc etc…I used to live there as a teenager and it was all cheesy chips and boys fighting on the high street after a night at the pub, land rovers and vans littered the high street but now there's an International Art Gallery (Hauser & Wirth) and insanely stylish interiors and lifestyle shops, a restaurant & wine bar that is housed in a old converted chapel, and people starting indie fine dining restaurants in their living rooms to cater to the influx of Bentleys on the high street and celebrities who come to visit ! Very different to how I remember leaving it 7 years ago ! But a welcome change for the art scene and local economy.

My current dilemma, is that I don't want to have to rely on benefits system or handouts but at the same time I want to be a present parent for my daughter, a mother who is actually around to support her emotional and social development, teach her and create for her a sense of security and home that will carry her through into adult life as a functioning & thriving member of society, rather than someone who was brought up by nursery staff who are strangers & just "doing a job". (As amazing as I'm sure a lot of them are)
No judgement to those mothers who do choose to do that. Both approaches are equally as hard in different ways and come with their own massive doses of "Mum Guilt".
But in fact now that she is 3, I am getting pretty desperate to have my own "work life" and have been striving towards that for over a year now to re-qualify and increase my earning potential. I never intended to be a Stay At Home Mum quite THIS long, but the fact of becoming a Single mum changed my plans & options quite substantially.
This has been my struggle as I really wanted to be a stay at home Mum for my daughter and to be available to her in her early years of attachment & development, but also wanting to bring money in to support us & create and independent sustainable life for us both so that we never have to rely on the government or a male partner joining our family. That of course would be lovely, but for my own peace of mind & self esteem, I want to be able to stand on my own 2 feet and not rely financially on a partner completely.

Elvie has just started a routine at an idyllic outdoorsy pre-school and I have lots of family support down here, so I we are very lucky to have space now to focus on starting to carve out a career for myself.
After completing a year long Post Grad Cert in Child & Adolescent Psychotherapeutic Counselling using The Arts in London, I am now focussing on attaining Wellness Practitioner Qualifications as I want to help people in the area of Wellness, Fitness & Healing.

This is me….proud at achieving a 60kg squat which at this time was my PB (now it is 70kg - my bodyweight - for 3 reps) after only months earlier being told I shouldn't be lifting anything heavy at all, as I was suffering from a childbirth related injury that I was told would only get worse unless I had surgery…well after strength training, building strength and muscle, I am now symptom free and my injury hasn't got worse, it has gotten better !

I got into fitness and weight lifting when my daughter was 6 months old & I was trying to lose the baby weight…I went from 83kgs to 70kgs over the space of a year or so…I was still breastfeeding until she was 21 months so I had to go slow with weight loss. But in letting go of that extra weight, & building muscle, I found more strength - mental and physical than I ever thought possible and healed myself in more ways than one.

More another day….let me know if you want to hear more from me and are interested in what I'm discussing and I'll keep posting more as I learn Steemit more and more…bear with !!

+ella

xxxxxx