I can safely say that this April was far better than last month -
I think I needed this month to happen after all of what happened in March.
The main reason it was better was because my time on a certain scheme finally ended on the 15th, I'd been on it since the middle of October, with a break in between for my Christmas trip to the US, and I am honestly just glad that it's over and done with. As it stands I'm now back to simply looking for a job, the cycle has pretty much started over, so I guess that's all I can do for the time being.
I've found that since I finished I've been feeling a lot better mood-wise - when I was on my work placement I was feeling very stressed and downbeat because I felt like I was doing a lot for very little, and it was also having an effect on how I interacted with friends online and in person, but since it ended it hasn't been so bad - and again, I apologise to any of my online or offline friends who I might've upset because of that.
Another part of what's helped my mood was the middle part of this month, some glorious weather arrived in my neck of the woods for a week or so, which meant I was able to get out walking to my favourite place to walk, the Deerness Valley Way, as well as one trip to the beach at Tynemouth. I really want to be able to see as much of those places as I can before the inevitable.
Speaking of the inevitable, me and Nicole have had some great news on that front - the immigration process is now under way, the payment has been made, so that means all we can do now is wait for them to contact us with the next step, which will involve me having to go for a medical check-up, and travelling down to London for an interview at the US Embassy, along with anything else that might crop up that we don't know about. Obviously, I'll keep you posted on how that goes.
Last but not least, this month had one clear highlight, and this was something that had been planned for a couple of months (why I didn't mention it, I have no idea) - on the 18th, I travelled down to York in North Yorkshire to meet up with not one, but four friends from DeviantArt, two of whom I'd met previously (Granitoons and Dracorum-Order), and two I was meeting for the first time (TopperHay and LaptopGeek). It was also my first time visiting York, so it was like killing two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.
York was a very interesting city, very similar to Durham with its oldy-worldly architecture, and it was very busy too with buskers, markets, performers and stag/hen parties (Hey, it was a Saturday.) We had a couple of meals at a traditional English pub and a wine/cheese bar; checked out a bric-a-brac shop packed with lots of assorted furniture, toys and treasures from the past; walked along York's distinctive city walls; paid a visit to York's most famous landmark York Minster, and most importantly of all, we had some quality drawing time. Three of us also brought some mascots for the occasion as well (LaptopGeek's Humphrey the train, Dracorum-Order's dragonvelope, and my own character Flyer of course). Aside from a momentary blip later on in the day, it was for the absolute most part a fun time had by all, I only wish we could rewind and do it all over again. If you'd like to see what we got up to, you can watch my video of the whole thing right here.
As always, I'll leave you with a bit of artwork from this month - a little cartoon/real-life crossover I put together, inspired by a place in York (I'm sure you can guess why.) Hopefully there'll be no Mayday calls in May.
