Safe to say, the last two months have been a bumpy ride. I’ve been struggling a lot with my indigestion to the point that at meal times, I find it hard to get food down into my stomach. I don’t know why this happens, but it really does make eating uncomfortable - especially when you have to chew something to the point it becomes a part of your phlegm and even then, it’s still really uncomfortable to swallow because you feel like you might choke or there is too much trapped wind in your oesophagus to swallow the food down.

It’s one of the reasons why I’ve felt so unmotivated to do anything - blogging, reading, Dutch, general conversation as the indigestion keeps me up all night. I’ve felt pretty pathetic that indigestion is causing me this much trouble. I find it hard to sleep at night, to shut my brain down from thinking ‘what if I choke on air in my sleep?’ as stupid as it sounds. I’ve had countless nights where I’ve had to run into my parents room from where the trapped wind is so painful and so uncomfortable that I’m having panic attacks over it. I hate it. And not only is it affecting my ability to do things, but it’s making me become very frustrated with things around me far easier than I should be.

On top of that, Davy and I only get to talk between 2-3 hours a day, during the week as he has been having very long shifts. This means by the time we get into a conversational topic, we have to say night already. It can be quite frustrating especially when the both of you wish you could talk longer than the amount you do.

Back on the 17th October, it was our four year anniversary! Yay, four years already!

Unfortunately though, we didn't get to spend much time talking since I had to go to work. But in the time we did have, before and after, we talked quite a bit.

We also got each other a little present. Jane got me this lovely “What I Love About You” booklet, where you have 50 lines with some gaps that you have to fill in. For Jane, I got a drawing tablet to help her draw on her PC with Photoshop and such.

She's been using the tablet a lot as well, she's drawn so many things. 

 (Hehe)

She's getting better with every drawing and I'm just so proud of her.

I just can't wait for our next anniversary again, where we'll be together!! We'll be so together, we will have closed the distance!

Finally I just want to say that I really love my Janey and I'd like to say once more, happy 4 year anniversary!!

When it comes to creativity, it can be hard to find that freedom you need to unleash it all. This is something that happens to me quite often. I can easily have periods of time where the urge to let out my creativity becomes overbearing and I just need to do something productive in a creative manner.

The only problem? I get so indecisive with how to let out that creativity. Sometimes I need to write, but I don’t know what to write. I have a few work in progress novels but I can never decide which one to just stick to and thrash out the plot. I’m learning to draw, but sometimes I’m at that stage where I’m not confident or knowledgeable enough to draw from the depths of my imagination without it looking like a 3 year old scribbled on some paper. It’s quite funny really. I only know how to draw heads right now, and I struggle to draw in proportion bodies. It’s just how do I make sure that the neck isn’t too fat or skinny for my subject’s head and that everything is aligned and looks, well, human? The other day I tried drawing a body and it ended up looking like a demented alien. And trust me, you DO NOT want to see that.

Regarding the fore-mentioned novels, I know I should be focused on writing them. But when your thoughts are constantly whirring about all the small things in life, it’s hard to just quieten it down enough to remain focused at the task in hand. Either that, or I start writing and I think I like the direction it’s going in and then I just hit a stumbling block and I can’t seem to get past it. Or the voice of the character starts irritating me so I start experimenting constantly. This usually leads me to getting fed up of the whole plot and starting from scratch. So I re-plan and rewrite everything all over again. Literally down to the T.

Alongside travel, for us long distance couples, gift buying can be one of the hardest things to budget. Especially if you’re an international couple and you’re trying to save money for visits or closing the distance.

With gifts, you have to think about a range of things. Is the postage going to be expensive to send from one country to the other? Is it too big or too small to send in the mail? Is it going to arrive on time? Is it a restricted or prohibited item? Etc. That’s why in a long distance relationship, you generally have to plan gift buying weeks - maybe months - in advance.

I’ve come up with some pointers on how I go about gift buying when it comes to a special milestone in our relationship - whether it’s an anniversary, birthday or a special holiday like Christmas or Valentines Day.

Being in a slump when in a long distance relationship is not unusual. We all get into them. Being in one doesn’t mean you are unhappy, or that you shouldn’t be in your relationship. It’s common, as humans, for us to feel frustrated with some aspects of our lives. Distance usually is the forefront of these frustrations for us LDR couples, and expectantly so. But what can you do to get out of one of those slumps when the distance just feels like it’s all too much to bear? That you aren’t strong enough to keep going, that you don’t feel worth being with because of the distance? You know what you do? You keep kicking the distance right in the butt. That’s right! Kick it as hard as you can!

Okay . . . You’re probably thinking; ‘what does kicking thin air have to do with getting me out of a slump?’

Nothing, but just imagining kicking all the miles that separate you and your love is pretty satisfying. Especially when you imagine it to be this huge blobby, ugly monster that you repeatedly kick it in the nuts . . . That’s if the monster has nuts . . .ahem.

Okay, okay . . . So kicking it in it’s hypothetical genitals isn’t doing it for you? Fair enough. So that’s why we have some tips to help you get out of that feeling of distance fatigue, heartache and loneliness.

Recently, we were approached by a British journalist - Amanda Stringfellow - from Barcroft Media to get word out about a new case study on long distance relationships for an undisclosed national newspaper in Britain. This case study is targeted at British nationals who are in a long distance relationship (or if your SO is British, that should be fine too!) We don’t have too many details about it, but please be rest assured that this is a real opportunity for you to talk about your experience of being in a long distance relationship and to show the world that distance truly can be overcome! If you are interested in participating or finding out more information, please contact Amanda at the following, make sure you mention that we sent you her way:

Email: Amanda@barcroftmedia.com (Subject: British LDR Case Study)

Twitter: @amanda_l_s

And in case you’re feeling unsure about the authenticity of this opportunity, you can check out Barcroft’s two websites (1/2) to see just what they do!

Remember, this is for British LDRs! We’re just simply trying to help people get their LDR journeys heard by a real newspaper! Let’s show everyone that long distance relationships aren’t impossible! That we can defeat the miles, regardless of all the obstacles facing us! Good luck!

It’s no longer Summer and with that comes a new refined blog design. This is so that our blog is much more pleasant to browse, and hopefully it means that more people will stick around and follow our posts than before (fingers crossed). The only problem we’ve come across so far, is that you might have to do a cache refresh (ctrl and f5) to get the navigation bar’s font to show up as it seems to be a little temperamental for us, at least. If you have any other problems experiencing the blog’s new look, please do comment!

So you guys understand what changes have been made, we’ve decided to break it down for you. Below is an overview of the new blog design.

The overall look of the new design is fresh, but simple.

Last night was probably one of the most stressful and worrying nights I’ve ever experienced in our relationship.

Not because of a fight or plans going wrong but more because I was so worried about Davy. He had been feeling a bit under the weather these last few days. At first we didn’t think much of it because we assumed it was from him lifting boxes and just being generally busy at work. But then yesterday, Davy started coming down with other things. His throat was hurting, he couldn’t lift his left shoulder/arm without it hurting, he was starting to wheez and cough constantly. Then later that evening, he checked his temperature: 101.4 F / 38.6 C. This was just as we were saying goodnight because Davy had an appointment with his GP this morning at 8.30am.

When he told me it was 38.6c, he was like “oh it seems normal” which confused me, because I was sure that the average body temperature was at least a centigrade or two lower than that. So feeling confused and even more worried, I asked my parents if that temperature was considered normal. My parents knowing from experience of having six children (and at some point, we’ve all had high temperatures whether it’s from pneumonia or other illnesses) knew something was off. Dad told me that I HAD to wake Davy up to get him to cool his body temperature because it went from normal to just a sudden hot spike in a matter of an hour. So, I woke him up - as bad as I felt about it and I managed to get him to get some ice for his head and cool cloths for the rest of his body.

I felt horrible because I knew he needed sleep in order to wake up for his appointment in the morning but at the same time, making sure his body was cooler was hugely important too. It took about half an hour for his temperature to be in the 36-37c range without any ice or wet cloths on his body, which wasn’t too bad. But all night I couldn’t stop tossing and turning in bed. Now we are just waiting to hear back about his x-ray results.

Last night was a defining moment for me because it just made me appreciate him even more. It made me realise how badly and how much I really need him to be okay. How heartbreaking it is not being able to care for him, look after him and be by his side to help him recover from this. He’s had colds and flu’s in the past, don’t get me wrong, but nothing as worrying and scary as this.

It’s little moments like your other half being ill to the point that you’re scared of their condition worsening and feeling useless because you can’t physically prevent it that really make you see how deeply you feel inside about them. Of course, Davy knows I feel deeply about him, as do I know how deeply he feels about me. But when you’re faced with possibly your SO having to be admitted to hospital, it makes you want to give them even more TLC the next time you see them. It makes every little kiss, hug, glance and butterfly in your stomach even more special.

Inspired by this LDR Writing Prompt: Defining Moment

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(don't forget to add Jane as a reference if you do sign up)

Finding things to keep an LDR fresh and exciting can be frustrating and at times tedious. But I have come up with a few ideas and tips that Jane and I use when looking for things to do together whilst apart.

I'm here to let you know about a few things Jane and I do ourselves to keep us busy and entertained.

It's hard to always keep busy though. You might not be in the mood to do something. Or you might not have the time to something because of the time zone differences. And sometimes even talking is more than enough.

But what if you want to do more than talk? Here's some suggestions:

Watch a TV show or a film together.

This is something Jane and I do often. Not too long ago we started watching New Girl, which is hilarious. We've also watched a British comedy called Bad Education and I can't start about the amount of films we've seen together.

It's really easy to do. Just find a show or show to watch that both you and your significant other are interested in, buffer your file and do a little 3, 2, 1 countdown and start watching. It'll keep you busy for a good amount of time for an extended period. It might take you a week to watch a show or maybe 3 months, as long as it keeps you busy.

A few days ago, I received a really cute package from LeafCutter Designs; their deluxe tiny mail kit (also known as the world’s smallest post service). I was super excited to try this product out as it’s one of those products that is really unique and it brings a little bit of pizazz to packages and letters to your loved ones - in my case, Davy.

When I first opened the package, I was stunned at how compact everything was. Usually DIY kits are far larger than advertised, but it LITERALLY is a tiny mail kit. It made me giggle at how small the stationary sheets were. I was expecting to have to use tweezers to handle it but thankfully my fingers were careful (and small) enough handling everything. The kit comes with different coloured stationary sheets, very fun-size postage stickers, various mini envelopes (plus not-so-tiny translucent envelopes for your minuscule envelopes to go into), brown paper and string for craft boxes and last but not least: some very cute special delivery/air mail stamps and ink. You also get a special edition of ‘the small times’ especially made for the tiny mail kit, along with a LeafCutter Designs magnifying glass! I did notice there was a DIY cut out mailbox, which I’m planning to make with Davy when we have our next visit!

Every relationship has its own goals. Whether you’re in a long distance relationship or a close distance one, it’s important to have a goal or maybe an idea for your future hopes. A long term relationship isn’t worth having if neither of you are willing to put the effort or commitment into it.

So if you find yourself in a long distance relationship, there is a 95% chance that you’re in it for the long haul and it isn’t just something you’re experimenting with compared to close distance ones whereas people are more relaxed and just go with the flow. Many of us (I say many of us but I mean like all of us) who are actually in a long distance relationship want commitment and want something permanent out of it and that’s usually closing the distance and settling down into a life together. Davy and I are no different. We’ll be discussing our future plans and how we intend to go about them.

So where and how does a couple start thinking about their future together?

First of all, you need to make sure that you’re on the same page as a couple. Both of us discussed what we intended to get out of the relationship. We were both pretty young still, and uncertain with what we wanted to even do with our lives. But we knew that we wanted to be together and to make distance work - as tough as it would be. We had random conversations where small hints of our individual goals for the relationship were casually slipped out. Whether it was by Davy making cheeky comments regarding marriage and an idea of having all the big TV news stations at our wedding (thank goodness that idea could never come to fruition because we’d much rather a more intimate ceremony) just to show our love off to the world, or by me just bluntly asking him the direction our relationship was heading.

image created by ldrblogs.com

Love letters are a perfect way to make your significant other feel loved and appreciated. And there’s never a bad time to send or write one. You can have the most silliest reasons for writing a love letter - to tell an SO that you miss them or just a simple I love you. Regardless of what your reason is, it’s bound to make you and your significant other grin from ear to ear! After all, it’s the fact you’ve thought carefully about what you want to portray to your love that counts!

We have decided to participate in LDRBN’s Relationship Challenge for September. The idea of the challenge is to encourage and influence people in long distance relationships to write more love letters to each other. Ideally, it’s a short love letter (but how long it actually is, is down to you) and we have asked our followers through our instagram to give it a go! If you do want to participate in the challenge, you can post a picture of your love letter to your significant other or write it as a simple caption on Instagram. Just make sure you use the hashtag #LDRLOVELETTER and that you TAG DAVYANDJANE on your instagram picture. The most important aspect of this is getting as many people involved and inspired to write letters. If you aren’t on instagram, you can write or copy your love letters into the comments section below! We can’t wait to see what you’ve written!

Below is Davy and I’s love letters to each other. 

To my Davybaby,
It's been a few days since you've been back in the stinky Netherlands (poor you), but I just want you to know that I am so grateful for your support and understanding. Especially during my crazy, emotional and sobbing outbursts these last few days, you have been amazing and you must know that I appreciate and love you with all my heart and more. You are the love of my life, baby!
Lots and lots of love
from your one and only
Janeybum
<3

My baby, My Janey
I love you so much!
You're everything to me. It's been 4 days since our visit but it feels like forever :(
But before you know it, the distance will be closed!
From Davy <3
xxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxx
xx

Join LDRBN!

(don't forget to add Jane as a reference if you do sign up)

So, for today’s post we’re going to be discussing some monthly goals. It’s somewhat of a prompt started over at LDRBN, where you choose three goals for that month and then next month you see if you’ve completed them. Now, because I know this isn’t Davy’s kind of thing (add the fact that he is super busy working), these goals will be mainly my own personal ones or ones we’ve come up with as a couple. 

In the back of our minds, we promised to try post more often on here. And that’s what we have been able to achieve even when our creative tank has been running low, we’ve really stepped up our own personal bar and hit some blogging heights for ourselves. We’re roughly hitting between 800-1,000 views a month which is pretty amazing to be honest. The blog has grown so much since we started. Although we know our monthly views could be higher, there was a time when we only had 500 views for the first year or so. Now we’ve had 8,700! Crazy! Imagine what our views will look like by the end of the year!

1. Practising Conversational Dutch More (Together / Online)

For me, this is something I need to do. I’ve learnt a lot in the year and a half since my Dutch journey began. I’ve gone from a girl that cried at trying to pronounce ‘lachen’ for the first time, to someone who can just do it at ease. Pronunciation is the easy part for me, I can recognise vowel sounds with new words and hit them with the first time. My ‘ui’ is still awkward, but that’s to be expected. I’d also love to be able to hold a conversation without panicking, internally. I know I can string sentences together, but it’s a confidence issue as all language learners experience. Whether I practise conversations through typing or out loud, the most important thing is to practise. Personally I feel like I need to have conversations out loud to improve. 

As I am writing this, Davy is on his way back to The Netherlands. We have just had our eighth visit, but the first time we’ve ever been able to share my birthday as a physical couple. I’m so blessed to be able to say that I have had the opportunity to spend my birthday with such an amazing man and human being.

I’m guessing you are wondering all about it hmm? So why don’t I tell you?

Well, it started off a tiny bit dramatic. Davy’s journey for the most part had gone smooth. I expected it to be a little bit turbulent with the times, because as you all probably know about the problems at Calais and Dover with migrants. Surprisingly enough, getting through border control etc went perfectly smooth. It was the last leg of the journey to me that was the frustrating part. Because his coach came in just a few minutes later than expected, Davy had to make a dash to the train station to catch his train to my town. This meant by the time he got to the station, the train he usually gets had just left the platform. Literally. So by the time he arrived in St Austell, it was 5.30pm, instead of 4.10pm - but the most important thing of all was being able to finally hold each other again!

When we got indoors, the usual post picking Davy up from the station routine began! We gave each other as many kisses and cuddles that we could fit in before he went into the shower to freshen up after travelling for nearly 24hrs straight. Then we had pie and mash (with liquor - not alcoholic…it’s a typical British thing, also known as green gravy or as I like to call it bogey gravy because it looks like bogeys haha) for dinner before curling up in each other’s arms for the rest of the evening. We headed to bed slightly earlier than usual as Davy was knackered and we had a 8-9wk old Bengal kitten to pick up in Devon the next day!

No matter who you are, where you’re from and what you did - you’re bound to have differences (check that reference out bwahaha). Davy and I are fortunate enough to come from the same continent; Europe. He speaks fluent English even though it’s not his native language. But even when we have little cultural differences between us, there have been some that have had us both going ‘what?’ to each other. Thankfully, there haven’t been too many culture shocks so far in our relationship. But I’m bound to come across some when I eventually visit the Netherlands. I’m thinking about maybe around our 5th year anniversary in Oct 2016 as the financial situation might be better and it’s an entire year from now (but it’s not set in stone). I know it’s been a long time coming but a lot of personal stuff has happened that has always prevented me from going so, it’s tricky. Not to mention, the only airport we have in Cornwall (Newquay) is finally expanding their horizons and teaming up with Emirates in conjunction with Flybe to link to 84 countries! So who knows what the future holds? :)

Anyway, back to the cultural differences between us. I’m going to list some things that I think separates us somewhat marginally by culture.

THEIR BLUNTNESS 

The Dutch are very blunt and straight to the point. Whereas us Brits try to avoid conflict and we’d rather go silent and be awkward, the Dutch can just blurt things out without really thinking how the other one might feel. There have been some awkward moments in our relationship when this has happened. Since being with Davy, I have noticed that I am a bit more blunt these days. Before, I used to just run away and hide and keep my evil thoughts to myself but now I’ll easily just tell someone if they’re pissing me off without batting an eyelid. Still, whenever we go out and people bump into me I can’t help but revert to my typical British being and apologise for it haha.

About five years ago, Davy and I first met online. I was nearly eighteen, and he was about to turn seventeen. At first, we didn’t really speak. Davy did his thing, and I did mine. We don’t really like to speak about the website where we met as it ended up causing a ton of pain from getting cyber-bullied on it so for now, I’m just going to say it was a website where you could show people what game you’re playing. I don’t want to mention the website because just hearing the name of it brings back all the bullying (and the anger that bubbles up because of how horrible people can make you feel) so I’m just going to refer to it as just a ‘chat room’ if that’s okay with people. Now that’s out of the way. Davy would come into my chat room regularly, and he would listen to me as I went about whatever I was doing at the time. At first, he thought I was pretty reserved and abrasive because my twin sister also frequented the website and I became pretty protective of people who would make fun of her spelling because of her disabilities so some people thought of me as a bitch. I wasn’t. I’m just very protective and I have a tough exterior to people I don’t know or I feel like I can’t trust.

One day, I suggested whilst on microphone to the chat room, that Davy should get Skype. He wasn’t so keen on the idea, but somehow I managed to convince him to make one. I’m not sure how long it was before we started speaking but, if you really want to impress the man that will end up being the love of your life one day then I recommend you start off the conversation like this ;)

[6/29/2010 3:37:53 PM] Jane Emily: Davyy, I am bored.

[6/29/2010 3:38:18 PM] Davy: You're not alone :O

I can remember our first ever visit.  In fact I can remember all of our visits. The gruesome time having to wait see each other, the long travel, and the added stress from everything going well.

I wouldn´t say it´s my favourite memory, but I remember when I first came over back in 2012. It’s also quite funny. I travelled via MegaBus from Amsterdam to Plymouth with a layover in London. I had to wait 4 hours to get on the bus to Plymouth. From 6 something PM to 10.30 PM I think it was. That was already horrible. Before even reaching London, I had to go on a boat of any kind for the first time in my life, queue nausea. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any sort of medication or what not to fight it, so I just had to wait until the terror was over.

But if those two things weren’t bad enough, it got worse! In those days I had a really horrible, low battery mobile phone. So before I even reached Plymouth, my phone was already nearly dead! I arrive in Plymouth, no clue where to go. I asked people including city coach drivers how to get to the train station but they were clueless! How is that even possible? You’d reckon that a coach driver knows how to get to places right? They drive coaches for a living! Through the city!

Happiness should and will always be a key aspect in a relationship. It’s what makes you feel like your relationship is worth going the extra mile for (pun intended), that your other half is the one you know is made for you, and it’s definitely an important thing to remember when you’ve had some ups and downs alongside the distance.

For us, we know that we make each other happy. We don’t need anyone to approve of our relationship or to approve of the person we’re with because they don’t know us a couple. They don’t see or hear the little giggles, the promises to tickle each other when they’re being cheeky or just being able to gaze into each other’s eyes whether it’s on Skype or in person. We don’t need materialistic things to be happy, sure it’s nice (especially when you want to show your appreciation with a physical object) but it’s not necessary. At least for us. Happiness is, for us, the little moments, the moments when we can just laugh our heads off without having a reason to other than being completely random, for knowing that you’ve finally found your soul mate. It doesn’t matter what has gone on, if there’s been a disagreement or a slight bit of tension, as long as you have those crying-with-laughter moments afterwards that help you move forward from the not-so-great moments.

Today Davy and I will be discussing the moment when we felt truly loved in our relationship. Of course, we have both always felt loved by each other throughout the last (almost) four years but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have particular memories of a moment when we felt overwhelmed (in a good way) about the love that has been displayed to us by our partner. Neither of us are very material people so we don’t need gifts to feel completely loved by our other half so this one we really, really thought thoroughly about before publishing this post.

If you are confused about the premise of the post, basically it is a prompt from ldrblogs (a network for long distance relationship bloggers) where each of you have to write down a moment where you felt truly loved by the other. Both of you can write about anything, as long as it’s to do with the actual prompt. Neither of you are allowed to see each other’s answer for the prompt until both of you have written down your *moment* and then afterwards, you share your reaction to each other’s responses. It’s a great way to make a post interactive especially when you run a blog together.

A long distance relationship isn’t the most ideal scenario for someone who suffers with anxiety or gets easily worked up and/or worried by the smallest things. I’ve had a lot of experience with this in the last three and a half years. Being a person that has had to deal with bullies throughout most of her life, I found it difficult to understand that I would ever be able to find someone who would love me for me. Especially since the target for a bully is to make you feel worthless. The bullies from primary and secondary school succeeded with that and to this day I still find it incomprehensible that I have someone in my life who loves me unconditionally and who doesn’t care what other people think of me because he feels differently and more positive about me than I have felt about myself.

One of my biggest fears is (or used to be quite often) that I’m not the amazing person Davy thinks I am. That this so-called “amazing Jane” of his is just the surface and that there is something much, much worse deep inside. In the three or so years we’ve been a couple, he has seen many sides to me. He has seen the goofy side of me, the passionate (and prepared to do anything for the love of my life) one, the insecure and worried about everything working out side, the book nerd, the stubborn side and the I’m not taking any bullshit side. And yet I still get terrified that one day he will be fed up of my constant mood switches and want to be with someone else. I even ask him “what if you decide you would rather have someone who doesn’t get anxious as easily?” and he ALWAYS, and I mean literally ALWAYS reassures me that there is no one else he’d rather be with no matter the distance between us or what has been said or done, that at the end of the day he would choose me every single time. And I am so grateful to have him as mine, and to be his.