Brunch Talk |1: Transition...on being in limbo

These days I'm rarely up early enough to call my first meal of the day 'breakfast' so brunch is usually the order of the day. While some consider brunch to be for lazy people who have nothing better to do than meander through the morning, it is better regarded (by those in the know) as the epitome of efficiency. Who needs two meals when you can conveniently merge them in to one, if slightly lengthier, affair? 

While I'm pretty sure my love affair with brunch will continue, being able to indulge in it as a daily ritual is time limited. I thought I'd set a little time aside now and again to have a chat over brunch in this, my little corner of the internet. I see Brunch Talk as becoming a life musings sort of series or simply a space for the things that don't fit anywhere else. 

Today I want to talk about the weirdness that is limbo. My particular limbo is this endless summer I've found myself in - the one after graduation before work starts and let me tell you its a STRANGE place.

But first things first...

Step one: Brunch.

In our household, we've recently had more than a slight flirtation with French Toast. Topped with bacon, with cinnamon and brown sugar or just plain and simple, but always served with steaming hot tea (in my case, the Lady Grey variety).

Step two: Talk.

Limbo is an altogether confusing yet wonderful place. Some days seem to crawl, often tediously so, but others fly by unchecked and undervalued.

These are hazy days - unformed, to be bumbled through with no particular aim or direction, to be appreciated for, sure as hell, their presence will be fleeting.

While so many people are telling me to enjoy this golden time of few responsibilities and even fewer constraints (on my time, on my energy), the suspense of limbo is sometimes excruciating.

You know that feeling you get when you're approaching the big drop on a roller-coaster, the feeling just before your stomach turns over - a kind of butterfly anticipation. That's the limbo feeling - that being on the edge of something bigger, something new, something exciting. That's all well and good, new adventures are on the horizon after all, but that's exactly the point - they're on the horizon rather than round the next bend. Since when did the body find it apt to prepare for the plunge this far ahead?

Add to this the endless possibilities. In my experience, it's dangerous when your time is suddenly your own - there are all those projects you've stored for all this time, things you've actually wanted to do with your time, things that you silently tucked away in the corner of your busy little mind. Now that you've got the breathing space to complete them, they are all jostling for room, all shouting pick me. Indecisive me has been overwhelmed by the freedom of choosing how to spend my day. Structured me is crying out for something to do, but indecisive me can't choose. This battle of wills usually results in not doing very much at all.

Two months of this and you can see how, at times, limbo can be testing, sometimes akin to madness!

Keeping the hazy days of limbo punctuated with the events of a summer to remember is the new challenge.

Have you ever felt the limbo feeling? What did you do to shake it off?

What's in a name?

I'm always intrigued as to how bloggers name their little corners of the internet. Such a creative group of people are represented by such an amazing array of names and the stories behind them are always my favourite thing to read on About Me pages.

But before I explain how 'Between My Passport Pages' came to be, there is something you should know about me: quotes are things I hoard ceaselessly. An endless source of inspiration, I'm pretty sure I have one a selection for every occasion - scribbled in notebooks, pinned to Pinterest boards, underlined in books, taped to the walls. There is something about the magic of words; the way they reflect a time, a place, a person, a feeling. But even avid collectors of quotes are surprised sometimes. Once in a while a quote sneaks up on me, like it was laid there in wait, hidden on the curve of a page until its time came. 

At the end of my university career, I found myself at a loose end. Having put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard very little in the last year (other than for lengthy essays or for rapid scribbling in the exam room), the concept of going back to writing for pleasure seemed a little alien. Having left the blogging world by the wayside a year ago, I was hesitant of the prospect of getting back on the horse. My old blog name seemed redundant - how could I start to write again if I couldn't even decide on a name for the space that was supposedly mine and mine alone?

Then, from the depths of Pinterest, came this:

I am a frequent traveller and have been ever since I left school at the age of 18. I've made homes in Chile, Spain, Russia and Portugal and will soon be moving to the Netherlands for a nine month stint. Some of my fondest memories come from between the pages of my passport and people I've not seen for a while always ask 'So where in the world are you this time?'.

I am often living out of a suitcase and that's what people have come to expect of me. This expectation helped me to understand the quote from two different angles: of course, from travel comes memories but also that there is more to a frequent traveller than their travels. 

While I don't deny this blog will often document trips and travels, it want it to be a little more than that; otherwise what will happen to this space when the passport is tucked away and the luggage stowed? As well as travel tips and expat stories, I wanted this space to reflect the other side of me too, the girl behind the heavily stamped passport pages - the one who likes to sew, to cook, to drink wine and to have afternoon tea.

From this, a blog was born.

'Between my passport pages'  will be a space for travels but also for the girl behind the passport. I hope you stick around!

Does your blog name have any special significance? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Meet Maxy...

This is Max...

He is my boyfriend's new Plummer Terrier/Jack Russell Cross Puppy.

Here is a Maxy fact file:

Max is scared of pretty much everything. 

• He is scared of ice cubes in drinks because they make a funny noise when they chink the side of the glass.
• He is scared of bubble wrap and boxes (that means sending him back to where he came from by post is not an option)
• He is scared of wrapping paper tubes
• He is scared of the spritz noise that aerosol cans make
• He is scared of fireworks and thunder (that one is understandable though really - they are loud!)

In short, he is the biggest whimp known to man (proven by his girly bark). On the day I first met him, he thought I was scary and hid in his bed until I coaxed him out with treats. Shame he isn't still scared of me, now he just clambers on me.

Max's favourite past times are:

• trying to jump the neighbours fence.
• wildlife watching/ hunting most notably staring at the light fitting on the look out for flies, patrolling the bedroom window for cats and (pictured below) bird watching.
• as you can see from the picture above Max also enjoys licking camera lenses and everything else for that matter - he's not fussy
• having no respect for any kind of personal boundary, clambering wherever he wants whether you're in the way or not and flopping at any given moment.
• putting muddy paw prints on the white bedding first thing in the morning.
• ripping apart toys labelled indestructible thread by thread.
• biting Richard (though this one is just plain amusing to everyone apart from Richard).

 In short he is an absolute terror...

...but who can resist that forehead wrinkle.