2017 - A Year In Review

As I'm writing this I'm sat with dye on my hair, aiming to recreate the hair look I've realised is basically my hair at its best, and the one I entered 2017 with. When you read this I'll be heading down to London to see in New Year the way I usually do, with my best friend and no defined plan - my favourite type of New Years Eve, to be honest. I'll have a shelf of new books waiting to be read when I get back, and a pile of magazines to get through, this year hasn't been an easy one for reading - thank goodness it's at least been a little better for writing. I hope I can do more of both next year.

This isn't about next year though, and it isn't (thank goodness) about my hair, it's about this year. 

2017 was A YEAR.

My friends asked me to rate my year this week and I gave it a staggeringly high 8/10. I wish I could have told first half of 2017 me that by the end she'd consider 2017 to be an 8/10 year. Maybe she would have enjoyed it more that way, but more importantly, maybe she wouldn't have beaten herself up so much about being unhappy in the first place. You can call it rose-tinting if you wish, but I have to say that feeling more peaceful by the end of the year does make me feel better about the whole 12 months. So with that in mind, let's take a little look at what 2017 brought me. 

• I lied, there is more about my hair - but finding my skin/makeup and hair happiness has been quite the achievement, I look forward to having those things locked down in 2018 and just maintaining them rather than endlessly googling 'best face oil uk'.

• I wrote - so much more! I pitched and got published and rejected (more the latter) and wrote this blog more and realised I only want to do it if I enjoy it. I don't want being a freelance writer to be my livelihood, or even a side-hustle, I want writing to be something I do as a passion project to relieve stress and make me happy. I'm glad I tried but also recognised I didn't enjoy any aspect of it (I love working in offices with other people - who knew?) and that I could be a writer without needing to send ten thousand emails a day trying to tell other people I was one. 

• I travelled - a lot. I just did a Twitter thread on my best moments of 2017 and after I'd finished realised I'd missed out so many day trips and city breaks. Next year will be more UK-based, but I hope I can still find time to take trips to every corner of the country and see the people I'm so lucky to have there. Travelling in itself isn't an achievement, but since I wasn't sure I'd ever get to have a year like this, it has made me very happy to look back on it and realise I had it, and I have loved every moment of it. The freedom and flexibility has truly been a blessing.

• I used my voice - I said what I thought, in public, in private, in public places but having private conversations because I have no sense of polite behaviour. I stood up for the things I believed in and myself (note for next year: make yourself something you believe in) and I met other people who thought the same. I didn't back myself and then I did, and you know, more than anything, I sleep much better now I do. 

• I made so many friends - I love other people and that's no secret so this one needs no explanation. 

• I have learnt so much - Arabic, French, politics and so much more from everywhere I've been and everyone I've encountered. 

It has been A YEAR. Maybe if I thought about it too hard I wouldn't call it a good year, but this is adulthood and it's HARD friends. If I can find a way to say it's a good year, if I can find a way to say I needed to have had those things happen to grow and change and just be in my twenties, and still class it as 8/10 because I know that's how I should feel - then maybe that's enough. May 2018 be the year I see the good things for what they are and the bad things as chances to learn. 

May we all have a little more peace and sleep as well as is humanly possible. 

*****

I'm on Twitter - @clairegillesp - where I'm realistically reviewing the year, talking about achievement and also posting my favourite photos from 2017.

I'm on Instagram - clairegillesp - where snow photos are available.

I'm reading Jeremy Bowen's War Stories and I love Loyle Carner.

xx

2018 Resolutions

This week I finally caved and decorated my room to match the feeling of the house - which is incredibly Christmassy - there is now a fibre optic tree on my desk, and multicoloured lights in my windows. The whole thing is very early 2000s and seasonal. So as the year comes to an end of course I have to talk about 2018 - what I want from it and what I’d like to do more of. I rarely make resolutions in the sense of changing my entire life outlook, I like to think I am slowly getting there with who I am as a person, and I don’t need to restart every January 1st. 

But then I had a very long and deep chat with some very good friends over a good breakfast (and then later in a Wok-To-Go), about resolutions and things we wanted to do next year so I was forced to think about it, and actually got quite into it. I don’t love the idea that I have to radically change my life every year but there are of course things that I’d like to be different by this time next year.

I also love a goal - so here are some more gentle and easily-achievable aims for 2018. 

• Less meat (the environment), less dairy (I’m intolerant) and more water (everyone should). 
• Keep taking your makeup off every night - this is going great so far, but it never hurts to keep it on the list. 
• Go outside every day - this will hopefully be easier eventually - whilst I’m still working from home in the dead of winter though, it needs a bit more focus and attention. 
• Do more yoga - even if it’s just five minutes in the morning, because it is so good for me and my joints and I don’t know why I find it so easy to not do something I enjoy so much. 
• Take plenty of photos, of other people, of things, of yourself - keep a nice record of things but also for me to enjoy enjoying how I look and not feeling bad about it most of the time. 
• If you won’t think of yourself, think of your skin - even though I could stress and worry myself to death every day, it would probably be more useful to stop doing that. Even if I can’t quite do it because I want to take care of myself emotionally, it is much easier for me to see the effects it has on my body, and vain as it may sound, it’s easier for me to focus on those sometimes than any kind of inner peace. 
• Read 30 books - I’ve even got a goodreads account and already started using it to get into the swing of things before I set myself a yearly goal of 30 books throughout the year. 
• Get rid of the trash - I know what I’m referring to and it’s about not putting up with things that have no place in my life in the new year, not waiting for them to get better, just plain getting rid of sources of stress in my life. Something I’ve already done in 2017 and I’m happy to report worked so well that I’m going to keep on doing it in 2018. 
• Stop explaining myself - I want to get better at saying ‘sorry, I just really don’t want to do that’ or ‘sorry, I’m too busy’ without feeling the need to bend over backwards to do everything that everyone asks me to. 

They might feel not very important, or deep, or life-changing, but I like them, I like that I can see myself doing them without too much effort but still being happy I did. I like that they’re about taking care of myself through being discerning about how I spend my time and energy, and I love that I’ll be taking care of myself on a number of different levels if I stick to them.

*****

I’m on Twitter - @clairegillesp - where lockdown is still active as ever but I’m also tweeting a lot about things I’d like to do differently next year.
I’m on Instagram - clairegillesp - where winter and Christmassy photos are everywhere.
I saw Star Wars, it was brilliant I have no other feelings about it that you’d thank me for so just go see it. I am also reading Journalism by Joe Sacco and The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown, and I bought myself the Faber & Faber Poetry Diary 2018 - so every week I get a new poem to go along with my messy handwriting which is nice.

xx

Smear Tests & Social Media

First off, some life updates: my most important message of this post is that if you are the right age to be eligible for a smear test please go. 

My nurse was super sweet and helpful and kept me talking and relaxed through the whole thing - which was not only fine with very low-level discomfort but also over very quickly. Of course even if it was the single most painful five minutes of my life it still needed doing and she told me that 92% of people who died of cervical cancer in 2015 didn’t get tested - so it literally saves lives friends, please please please don’t put it off. 

The second is that I went to a wedding! It was beautiful and emotional and I felt very honoured to be part of such a special day. Everyone looked absolutely gorgeous and the wedding was completely their own, including the flowers and table centrepieces which her wonderful mum made (get in touch if you’re getting married in the Yorkshire area and still looking for a florist). 

I’ve also been planning the rest of the month, filled largely with festive activities, and other activities which aren’t in themselves festive but are taking place in December so everything is by default a bit associated with Christmas. The words ‘we’ll have to see each other before Christmas’ keep coming out of my mouth, despite the fact that I have no family commitments beyond the day itself, and therefore, I am actually no less free than any other week of the year. Before January would probably be a good idea though, I have a feeling 2018 might bring a lot of change with it, including a possible change of location (?). 

I’ve almost kept my commitment to never complain about being busy, despite how much this time of year is a nightmare for everyone, because I am trying to accept that I actually enjoy it and not get trapped in complaining for the sake of it. 

Change of location not advised when home looks like this.

What a segway, now on to the topic of today’s post. 

The disclaimer I surely don’t need is that I am not at all suggesting you just snap out of feeling depressed or any other mental health issue you might have. I know that is impossible, and I would never tell anyone feeling that way to just ‘think about things differently’, I am not about to tell you to go for a walk to cure your clinical depression. I am lucky enough to not feel that way all the time, but I am also guilty of not always taking good emotional care of myself even when I don’t. 

The thing is, although I’m a huge advocate of feeling your feelings, when those feelings become a general mindset that I could do something about (i.e. I’m not suffering mental health-wise I am just being miserable) I have a responsibility to myself to try and be better. At least with the way I talk about things if nothing else, I am so guilty of being drawn into finding something to complain about when my friends are doing it, and the way I talk about and frame things has such an impact on how I feel about them. Incidentally my best friend is my best friend for the very reason that she encourages me to be excited where I could be stressed, to be proud when I could feel defeated, and to embrace being busy where I could be overwhelmed by it. She’s wonderful and I’m very lucky. 

I am lucky, not just for that reason but for a million others. 2017 was such a year. Describing it as great doesn’t feel right but it WAS, look at all the things I’ve done and the friends I’ve made and the things I get to do now because of it all. I can’t measure the year by its worst moments because that would be unfair, every year has had its troughs, and 2017 has been no worse than any other in recent memory. How many times have people sent me messages saying ‘looks like you’re having an amazing time’, ‘so jealous of your Instagram posts’ only for me to be like ‘yeah they’re right, this is all pretty great, thanks for reminding me’.

It really is as good as it looks, I have had an absolutely brilliant time. 

None of that is manufactured, or put on, and I wouldn’t feel like I could put it on social media if it was. Even the parts that aren’t Instagram-worthy are pretty great, I have friends I can have two-hour phone conversations with, who call me when things are bad and when they’re good, and I just generally love the company of other people. I’m trying not to complain about being busy when I make my life that way because I love it. 

The problem is that I don’t hold on to that feeling, and I don’t look at all of that for what it is - a really wonderful collection of people and opportunities which I am so blessed (#blessed) to have. I don’t take the time to think, actually there is so much in this life that you can handle but only because you have such a support network around you. I don’t say ‘actually I couldn’t give a sweet shit about having a lot of things, but having my friends close is something I really care about and have’. I have everything I could ever really need, including the sort of relationship with my parents which allows me to live in their house long-term-temporarily, and it infuriates me that I don’t even enjoy it. 

Any google of ‘social media comparison’ and you could read enough think pieces to fill a lifetime on how awful Instagram is and the relative evils of following people on social media. When it comes to body image and Instagram I am a complete advocate, please unfollow people who make you feel bad about yourself, you do not need that in your life. Fuck those beauty standards and fuck that pressure when we’ve all got better things to do and specifically fuck anyone who promotes that revolting ‘diet’ tea. 

What I often also find myself doing though, is feeling bad about myself because I’m not a business mogul aged 25, because I’m not giving TED talks on how to build your brand or manage a social media career. I don’t even want any of those things! I don’t want to be an entrepreneur, or a social media personality or have a personal brand. I can barely think of anything worse. I would quite like a podcast and a blog and some articles published sometimes but I also crave a 9-5. I want to go home and do nothing and have a normal schedule and some people don’t want that and that’s fine, but why am I jealous of things I don’t even want? 

I wonder if maybe it might be a bit harder to be content with what I have than I expected, and if maybe I’m not surrounding myself with the right people. I should make absolutely clear of course, that I do not insist on everyone around me being happy 24/7, but there is something to be said for surrounding yourself with people who cheer for you and encourage you to remember everything you’ve already got and achieved. That responsibility is on me too, to make sure I don’t take things for granted, and to make sure I don’t make my life a race against milestones that don’t even exist. I want to be able to scroll through social media and enjoy pictures of someone’s gorgeous holiday or fancy work event without using them to beat myself up with. 

I don’t want to have to convince myself that ‘no one’s life can possibly be that good’ because that feels like I’m hoping someone has struggles in their lives that I can’t see. I hope it really is that good, and I just want to remember that my life is that good too. Your life is good in its own way and I hope you enjoy it as much as social media looks like you should be, I want to enjoy mine as much as I should be, too. 

*****

I’m on Twitter - @clairegillesp - with a festive name but still on lockdown for the foreseeable future. It isn’t the dream but it is a necessary measure so I don’t worry about it every single day.

I’m on Instagram - clairegillesp- where there is more winter and Christmas content on the way.

I just read The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, The Upstairs Room & The Silent Companions - all ghost stories and very befitting of my winter mood. Someone commented I was ‘reading my feelings’ and tbh, yes, and I’m loving it. 

xx

Good Advice

Who claimed this would be weekly! Not me!

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks leaving and returning and working out how to work from home again. It’s been a lot of making plans and spending more time on trains than I thought was humanly possible within the space of a week. It really hit home when someone asked how long I’d been back and I said it must have only been a week to the day but yet I’d only spent four days in my home city. This weekend is no different but I get to see more people I’ve been dying to see for the past few months, and then I get the ultimate honour of being a bridesmaid at the wedding of one of my oldest friends. I’m so excited and still so overwhelmed about being asked - I am sure the day will be one of the best of my 2017.

I’ve fully embraced being back at home by drinking approximately 100 cups of tea, burning candles at my desk (Macaron - Voluspa from Anthropologie, smells gorgeous) and wearing a different jumper every day. I am making Christmas-based plans and eating all the food I’ve missed so much (all of it). Job applications are boring and I don’t want to go too in-depth into the process but if anyone sees a job I might like/be good at, please don’t hesitate to send it my way.

I haven’t been completely missing from the internet, and I wrote this over on Dear Damsels about why I love winter because it’s so consistent and also because I love it being dark and cold because I fully embrace the weather of most of the year we can do nothing about.

Now, on to the point of the post.

I get given a lot of advice, we all do. I also hate being given advice, I sometimes call them ‘platitudes’ rather than advice because honestly a lot of the time it feels like the person might not have bothered saying anything at all. That being said, I’ve realised that being in your mid-twenties and therefore, being a ‘Millennial’ (still hate it as a term) means that you’re either reading a think-piece on advice someone is giving, or talking about your problems with your friends and inadvertently talking about ways you could make yourself feel better.

It hasn’t all been terrible, so I thought I’d share the best pieces of advice I’ve been given:

‘Nice things don’t happen’

Going with my favourite first, this might sound like terrible and fatalistic advice, but I love it for that reason. I love the concept that nothing just spontaneously happens to you and the best things in life are usually the result of continuing to work and try and just keep on pushing until something gives. Which not only feels very true to my experience but also is literally the only way I can motivate myself some days, so we can but hope it’s actually somewhat true.

‘Just learn to let things go’

This one said to me not by a friend trying to comfort me, but by someone who may as well have said ‘can you please just stop talking about this problem’. Well eventually I have learnt to let things and people go, specifically people who don’t take my concerns and problems seriously and try and tell me to ‘just let it go’. Never let it be said I don’t take the advice I’m given.

‘Life is too short and your peace is too valuable’

This one I have applied in very specific circumstances. For example, I have unsubscribed from all the podcasts I listened to which constituted of privileged white women talking about how hard it is to live in central London as a freelancer and how scary it is to have non-opinions on the internet. I believe in diverse opinions but I also have no desire to spend my time listening to 50 minutes of basic-business talk which could leave me wanting to pull out my own eyes.

‘Listen to the people who love you’

People have been screaming this at me, but most importantly my best friend. This resonated with me so much I wrote about it for Anne T. Donahue’s weekly newsletter. It’s very true though, I hope you do focus in on the people who care about you and like you. You are definitely allowed to believe your own hype, because life will take you down a peg or two all on its own, without you inviting people in to help.

See also: ‘The Devil doesn’t need an advocate, he’s literally fine.’

‘Don’t tell everyone everything, you don’t know what their intentions are’

I wrote an entire post about this, about not always discussing your future plans with everyone and actually, now I’ve gotten into the incredibly tedious activity of applying for jobs, I’ve been finding it much easier. Apart from telling people who need to know when I’m going for an interview, I haven’t really discussed what I’ve been applying for or even how I’m feeling about it. Beyond the fact it’s very boring and every job application that doesn’t accept a CV makes me want to pull out my eyes.

*****

I’m on Twitter - @clairegillesp - where we are still on lockdown because of job apps but I accept basically everyone to follow me, so don’t be put off by that.

I’m on Instagram - clairegillesp - where top-quality UK and wedding content will be coming very soon.

I’ve been listening to Ed Miliband’s podcast Reasons to be Cheerful which I love as much as you would expect, and I’ve been reading ghost stories (The Upstairs Room, The Silent Companions) on the recommendation of the podcast What Page Are You On? I would heartily recommend both of them, as well as the December issue of Vogue, which is the first under new Editor-in-Chief Edward Enninful.

xx

The Pros & Cons of Staying

First of all, yes there was a little angry ranting blog post last week which I forgot/chose not to promote - it is about sexual harassment and it is here. In other news I also wrote this, for The Financial Diet, and this for Left Foot Forward. They are all in a very similar theme but different angles of today’s blog post, so that’s nice. I was also featured in Anne T. Donahue’s newsletter That’s What She Said, and that little excerpt is here (you should subscribe they are always very good):

"Listen to the people who love you and believe them." This is good advice because whilst I continue to be a bit of a disaster, my friends still love me -- this is because no one ever loved anyone because they were perfect, or ultra-successful, or got really good exam results. The people around me controversially continue to love me despite the thousand and one things that I have tried that have not worked. That is almost certainly true for everyone and their friends because the people who love you are not the Dragon's Den panel. Unless they are, in which case I hope they don't behave like that in their down time.

*****

I’ll level with you, I’ve never made a pros and cons list before, and until now I’d always thought they were basically useless. Then I started to have doubts about being here, the real reason I came basically ceasing to happen and the ambitions I had for staying looking solidly like they weren’t going to be fulfilled. Being here for a second period of time also gave me an insight into the things I want, and the things I miss. Most pertinently though, it gave me a lot of time to think about the things I think are important, and what I want my life to be made up of.

I didn’t include the obvious con which is of course, after declaring I was off on a long-term jaunt abroad, I was back, after only three months. I have the opportunity to do so many cool things here if I stay but I have to be honest about my career/life priorities at the moment, and these things might be cool but they’re not exactly what I’m looking for right now. The next few months will tell whether what I’m looking for exists and is within my reach but I think it’s worth my while to try. The embarrassment and apprehension of having to explain my decision isn’t really there in the way I expected it to be, I suppose after three years plagued with changing circumstances and changes of heart you just learn to get a little less attached to consistency. It hasn’t all been bad, but I can’t pretend it was all planned either.

This is me, all day, every day.

So, now I'm adding another unplanned decision to the list and I'm going home and it will 99% be for good. I've started applying for jobs, and clicking attending on events, and making all sorts of long-term plans and telling people I'm leaving. It's fair to say everyone's response has obviously been incredibly supportive, I guess that's maybe why I don't worry so much about these changes of heart or life decisions because I know I've surrounded myself with good people who respect me and support me. Here's the thing, even if they didn't, I just have to go.

Try as I might I just don’t have any attachment to Amman as a place, I have good memories here but I don’t recall them the way I do everywhere else I’ve lived. The people I’ve met here are as much a part of my life as people I met anywhere else, but I just can’t conjure the image of Amman as my home in the way I wish I could, not in a way that would make me want to stay. Especially not if the cafes and restaurants here continue to blast the AC despite the fact it’s really not that warm outside. I’m in a constant state of confusion because I see people sitting quite happily in t-shirts and I’m wearing three layers and freezing.

I wish there was a way to replicate how easy it is for me to practice and learn Arabic here, and to bring everyone with me, and to take all the bits of my life I love with me. But then it wouldn’t be leaving and then it wouldn’t be a decision at all. The truth is I just need a good job with good money and I wouldn’t find that if I stayed, not in the opportunities I’ve been offered and not with the sectors I would be able to work in. I have to be realistic and brutally honest with myself and wish as I might I’m just not in the position to do unpaid internships or receive stipends and also live and happy life in which I’m not constantly stressed about money. Nor should I have to, and I don’t want to resent my workplace because they claim to be socially conscious but don’t pay their staff. I have before slipped into saying that I shouldn’t have to work these jobs for free but no one should have to work any job for free. I have the ability to choose to not to that (and also the circumstances which force me out) and I am taking it (and accepting them).

So now these are my final few weeks in Amman and I’m very okay with that. I’m trying not to wish them away even though I’m so excited to go home and see everyone, trying not to condemn the time I still have left just because I know I’m making the best decision by leaving. Trying to work out how much stuff I’ve actually gained and if it’s possible to pack it all - why have I bought souvenirs that need to be laid flat and are made basically only of paper, what was I thinking?

*****

I’m on Twitter - @clairegillesp - which is locked right now so I don’t ruin my blossoming career as a PR for dentists.

I’m on Instagram - clairegillesp - where these will be the final few weeks of Amman-based content.

My life is just job applications and writing at the moment so I’m listening to podcasts but not really listening to them because I’m just writing about how great I am at teamwork over and over again.

xx

#metoo & the responsibility of men

No usual blog this week, too many decisions and job applications and a thousand things I'll explain later. 

Instead, just this: 

I originally wrote a list of incidents in the last few weeks, stories that you will have heard if you know me well. I deleted it because I don’t think I should have to relive every story for men to believe me. Because I’m a woman I’m expected to break myself open to help them understand, whether that’s good for me or not, whether they care or not.

How willfully stupid are you and how many times do we need to tell you?

I’m bored. I’m bored of being harassed, but I’m more bored of sharing these stories and having my female friends sympathise and talk about what ‘works’ to get rid of these men and what doesn’t, whilst my male friends seem surprised. Every. Single. Time. I’m bored of having to tell them only to feel like I might as well be talking to myself. You know these men. You have to. The world is not that big and these are your friends or your brothers or your cousins. It is your responsibility and not mine.

If I were to ‘be more careful’ at this stage I would have to conclude that the only effective precaution would be to never go outside, and I’m certainly not harassing myself, so who is to blame?

Harassment is bad, and it’s worse and more dangerous for women who do not have the privileges that I have. Men should be embarrassed of their gender and men should do something about it, because you have the ultimate privilege of being considered an actual person. Men do not harass me because they want to hit on me and they don’t know how. Men harass me the same way a child might run into a flock of birds; because they can, because they think it's funny and because they don’t humanise the thing they’re bothering because they don’t think birds have emotions or humanity in the same way people do.

And maybe you don’t yell at women on the street. Congrats. But maybe you do talk shit about women and call them ‘crazy’, maybe you believe women owe you their good behaviour, because they’re there just to please you, right? Women can only exist in relation to men so if you disapprove and say ‘I hate it when girls…’ then guess what, you’re still to blame. Every time you say something like that, you say that I can only be whatever you say I am, and therefore, I am only worthy of the treatment you think I deserve. If I am your friend or your sister or your daughter I am still a woman, and when you say ‘women’ you are talking about me. Those men on the street don’t care that you’ve deemed me ‘worthy’ of respecting, they just hear ‘women’ this and ‘women’ that.

The best way I ever heard it described was this -

‘every time you call a woman a slut, you make it unsafe for your friends and sisters and daughters and mothers to be outside’.

At this point I’d rather men just said ‘I’m sorry I know you’re being harassed and I probably do contribute to it somehow, but you know what? I just don’t care enough to say or do anything about it.’

And no, I’m not more exasperated or emotional than any other woman when it comes to this issue, I just have a blog and I won’t be quiet.

Finally, a little disclaimer: love and so much support to women who shared their experiences under the #metoo hashtag and I hope women who feel comfortable doing so continue to share their experiences. I will continue to support women, and all marginalised groups as much as I possibly can but I will not do any more emotional labour in which I am expected to explain to men who evidently could not give a shit, the ways in which misogyny impacts on my life. I will simply not endure those relationships, because I don’t think that on top of everything else, I should have to grin and bear discussing my actions and feelings about the men who harass me rather than say, what actions men could take to make it stop happening.

******

Here are some other things I've written this week: 

The Financial Diet What Happened When My Job Didn't Exist

Left Foot Forward Self-Employment and Worker's Rights

xx

Two Trips to Lebanon

Since I got back to Amman in August it feels like I’ve been constantly on the move, working with Project Amal ou Salam (which I’ll be writing about soon) and spending a couple of long weekends in Beirut with friends old and new. I am so lucky to be able to travel this region easily, and see so many versions of what we know the Middle East to be.

Both trips were approached without any sort of itinerary, the second was was very spontaneously booked because I was having a bad week, there was a national holiday and when someone asks me to go on a trip with them I find it impossible to say no. It was a reunion with a very good friend and some wonderful new ones, and I’m very happy I went even if the same country twice within the space of a month seems a bit much. I will do a little list of recommendations below, of restaurants, places and things to see.

• The Sursock Museum - is free and very cool and a great gift shop.
• Street Art - there must be an actual walking tour of street art in Beirut and it would be very worthwhile.
• Mar Mikhael - lots of cool cafes and tiny art galleries, can easily do a relaxed day walking around this area.
• Tannourine - go on a hiking tour, see some Lebanese Cedars.
• Sour - a cute fishing village if you have time, definitely not a priority.
• Le Chef - good food and good service.
• Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque - those ceilings.
• Downtown farmers market - Fridays(?), good to go for lunch.
• PlanBey - Treat yourself, and everyone you know, very good prints & graphic novels as well as handmade food gifts.
• Corniche - 10/10 would sea again.
• Jbeil - Beautiful, sea, castles, good sea food.
• Breakfast Barn - if you are the sort of person who likes oat milk and chia seed pudding, which I am.
• Makan - different cuisine every week, sit in the adorable courtyard.
• Mezyan - good Lebanese food.
• Onno - good Armenian food.

Obviously the sea is in there because we all know how life-changing I consider by the water to be. In my opinion you should always travel with people who want to make the effort to watch the sunset over a body of water because it will 100% be wonderful and make for a top Instagram photo. Beirut is not centred around its waterfront in the same way a lot of other places are but a walk along the corniche is a perfect pre-dinner activity.

               

Food-wise there are of course a number of Lebanese restaurants and the food across Lebanon is absolutely excellent. There are also so many cool cafes and restaurants with everything you could possibly crave, I’ve eaten sushi, a classic avocado on toast and a thousand coffees. I would of course recommend you had cuisine native to the region during your trip but if you want good food then Beirut can deliver on all fronts. Also, as very little of this is readily available in Amman without me bankrupting myself, I took the opportunity to exercise my #basic tendencies.

Lebanon is beautiful and wonderful and I adore it but it wouldn’t be fair to say any of that without giving a voice to the people I met, and know, who actually live there. A lot of Lebanese people are less enamoured with their country, the political instability, daily power outages and the influence of big business taking over buildings damaged by the civil war. Wandering into an art gallery we talked to the owner about the culture of Beirut, which feels so cosmopolitan and very genuine with it, only to be told that actually most people are all too aware Beirut has ‘copied’ capital cities from around the world. Buildings are being redeveloped to mirror the skyscrapers of London and Dubai and with it, Beirut is losing its classic architecture both Arab and European.

For sure, Lebanon is a country still finding its way and Beirut a city discovering how it can exist with all its multiple influences and communities harmoniously. I could not recommend it more highly, especially given that travelling options in the region are so limited and given that Lebanon is, comparatively to Jordan or Egypt, a much simpler excursion in many ways, for a first time traveller in the Middle East.

             

Personally, they were both absolutely perfect weekends, and I have completely fallen in love with Beirut. They were also much needed breaks where I travelled without my laptop, without doing any work, with hardly any access to wifi. I was reminded a lot of being in Paris, not just because of the French, but because of the way those weekends in Lebanon made me feel, the way a proper weekend break can make me feel like the things I’m worrying about aren’t big as I’m convinced they are.

So once again I’m calling on that post-weekend-in-Paris feeling where I realise how how many cool things I get to do, that maybe despite everything I actually choose this for myself. Even though, come December, I’m going to be offering up my soul in exchange for sitting in my parents house watching Christmas-themed daytime TV and being drenched to the bone by what is affectionately known as ‘British-summer just a bit more consistently cold’. Everyone has told me I should do at least one Christmas abroad so I guess this is the first one, and hopefully, the only one.

*****

I’m on Instagram - clairegillesp - it will never not be Lebanon-based content.

I’m on Twitter - @clairegillesp - more tales of being taken for a ride by my dentist and Conservative Party Conference hilarity.

I’m listening to the podcast Dissect Season 1, which goes song-by-song through Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly and is a great analysis lyrically and technically.

And finally, a public service announcement: people who do not make you feel good about yourself do not deserve to see what you’re doing, babe, just block them.

xx

The Wrong Dentist

Sometimes things happen here and I just think ‘yes, this is peak life abroad’. The thing about being British is that we love rules and regulations and a set course of action. I’ve never known a people better suited to following recipes and flat-pack instructions, no country has produced a population more ready to fill in forms, than Britain.

The most embarrassing part of my life in any place that is not the UK is that I cannot get rid of this particular personality trait. I love a 5-stage process, I couldn’t be happier than when presented with a numbered list. Doing life admin tasks in a place with a system I am unfamiliar with is bound to be stressful, and in the case of going to the dentist, I was not wrong.

The main jist of this story is that two dentists tried to rip me off, one without even having an x-ray machine to assess my teeth with. I accidentally walked into a second one and even they tried to tell me my insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment I wasn’t having with them during an appointment I hadn’t booked. I am of course incredibly lucky to be provided with health insurance (although this experience means that I maintain that insurance systems are total bullshit), and I do have a wonderful dentist now who allows me to have my treatment in convenient slots. Doing the treatment in tiny increments is obviously much more convenient for me as it allows me to arrange them around work and take recovery time, I am under no false pretenses though, I am pretty sure the real motivation for this is so they can claim maximum insurance repayments.

Other updates include the fact that I have very noticeably been spending a lot of time in Lebanon. As predicted by numerous friends I have completely fallen in love and Beirut has planted itself on the list of places I would happily live in the near future, so watch this space but for now it’s no more travelling until I make the journey home in November. As discussed in previous weeks, I’m a bit lost for purpose right now but doing things like taking spontaneous trips to Lebanon make being far from home a little bit more intentional. It also reminds me, along with the friends who message to say they’ve been following my trips on Instagram and they look incredible (which they are), to be a little happier and more excited about the things I get to do during my time here.

Although I believe honesty is important, and I never want to pretend my life is perfect, I also have had a real word with myself lately about not talking my life down because really, it is pretty good. Every time I explore somewhere I love I learn more about myself and the things I want from my life and the place I live. I get to hone my tastes a little more and meet so many people, taste so much food and see so many beautiful places and things. I recently told my friends I needed to ‘dial down the life crisis’ and to be honest, yes, precisely that, a little less life crisis and little more just, life.

With that in mind, things around here are going to change. Which they obviously already have because for the third week in a row we are weekly which is both exciting and also much overdue. I want to talk more about politics because anyone who knows me knows that is an enormous part of my life and it seems pointless to keep it off this space, especially because it’s what I write about the most outside of this context.

This week of this year is seven years since I went to university, which you might expect me to declare unbelieveable but actually it’s totally believable, I would say it feels approximately seven years ago. I will probably write something about being a student next week (ideas box open) because I remember that time of my life as being distinctly average but I want it to be better just because the years that followed were both better and SO MUCH WORSE. I want to find a way to talk about money and career things without making myself unemployable/having to change my name when I go looking for jobs.

Overall, September was just such a weird month because I was away for so much of it, it’s meant to be the start of autumn but actually it’s only just become cool enough here to wear a jacket at night. I didn’t go to yoga and my back and shoulders didn’t thank me for it, I ate more dairy than I should and my skin didn’t thank me for it. The positives of this though are: 1) yoga is worth the money to stop me crippling myself in my sleep, 2) the water here was never to blame for my hair and skin woes, it was just the dairy!

I will be using October as my fresh start.

I’ve still never had a pumpkin spice latte, maybe this year will be the very basic year.

*****

I’m on Instagram - @clairegillesp - solid Lebanese content all round.

I’m on Twitter - clairegillesp - solid leftwing content and shit jokes all round.

I’m listening to The School for Dumb Women, the last episode made me laugh out loud in public so if that doesn’t recommend it, nothing will.

xx