Once upon a tale.....

Welcome, one and all, to my little corner of this world wide blogosphere from which I shall be sharing my Tori tales of life, love, laughter, high, lows, fears, hopes, dreams and everything in between!

This blog has been a long time coming. I had aimed to get it ready in time for the beginning of January so as to welcome you all with a ‘Happy 2013!’ post but this deadline came and very much went again without so much as one word on the page. However, I would like to think it’s arrival is accepted as better late than never at all (and I can of course welcome you instead with a 'Happy Valentines Day' message!)

Although not one to make actual resolutions (the excessively-prone-to-worrying head I have has enough to contend with without the added pressure of real-life actual goals to achieve!) I did decide that this year would be the one in which I would start to write down all the things I have to say.

This first post, however, has taken a lot longer to write than I had originally envisaged and that's for two reasons. The first reason is that, having never written anything down before, not even really for myself in the way of a diary, I had no idea what my writing ‘voice’ would sound like. Trying to get the best balance of normal/funny/interesting/not a madwoman has been harder than expected! For those who blog, how have you come to find this balance? For a newcomer I certainly have found it a tricky one to strike!

The second reason is that the ‘putting-myself-out-there’ step has felt like a fairly substantial one to make. I realised that what comes with creating a blog is 'me' - the person behind it - warts and all. All my thoughts, feeling, opinions even - all the stuff that goes a long way toward making me who I am - would be out there for all to see, and that can be quite a scary thought (though I have no doubt it's one shared by plenty before me and, I would expect, plenty who will come after). However, in weighing up the pro’s and con’s of whether or not to create a blog (during which my ever-present pessimistic side fought good and proper to succeed) I always had this feeling, seemingly buried deep down inside me, that I wanted to to take the risk because, if I'm being honest, I don't do that a lot. If ever. And even though the worries, fears and scaredy-cat thoughts clawed their way up to the surface on many an occasion, this feeling fought too. And it won!

Of course, then came the deliberation over what my first post should entail. My ultimate decision was to dedicate it to the beginning of a new chapter I started in my Tori Tales last September, one in which I packed up my little life and relocated, together with the boy, to Nottingham to become a (yes, first-time-around and certainly mature) student. Here are a few photos to depict this journey :)

Our first visit to the city wouldn't have been complete without a trip to the White Rabbit Teahouse
(thanks to Olivia's post that prompted said visit!)

The first view of our not-yet-known-to-be-future-flat (the twelfth we saw!)

Moving day and here we are, off into town for a spot of (Prezzo - love me some Italian!)
lunch after unpacking the van!

Walking my parents around the uni grounds!

Two beautiful sunsets captured from our flat window

We certainly have pretty skies in the Midlands!

A sunny Autumn visit to Newstead Abbey

My first attempt at baking something other than Vic'Tori'a Sponge
These were my rather fairycake-like attempt at red velvet cupcakes!

Tea and sunny days in the flat

Snow and chilly days on campus

And that's all folks! Thank you for visiting and I hope to see you around here again soon :)