Sweet girl, action girl

A vanilla friend once jokingly said that my problem was that I wasn't sure if I wanted to be Lara Croft or Legally Blonde. At the time I was frantically trying on dresses for a black tie dinner in the forty minute gap between racing on the river and having to jump on a bus to go rock climbing for the weekend. The girly part of me demanded trying on virtually every dress in multiple shops despite the incident taking place during my sylph like days when everything fitted, no questions asked. The action girl was getting impatient, thus trying to save time (if you've never seen someone in the stylish combo of a pink frilly dress teamed with waterproof trousers and walking boots you're missing out) and fretting about whether there would be time to pick up new batteries for my head torch or not. My poor friend was trying to ensure that we made the bus and I had something to wear for the dinner the following night, whilst gently suggesting we did really need to pick up some lunch before leaving.

It does sometimes feel like I have two contrasting personalities that want completely different things. So much so that what makes one happy makes the other edgy. Part of me wants fifties dresses, big petticoats, nice kitchenware and frilly knickers and another part of me wants to trek to Everest Base Camp, raft the Nile, push my body until I scream and is happiest in trackies and a hoodie. On the scene the dichotomy raises it's head as well - sometimes I am in evangelical 'good girl' mode and generally want to please people, look pretty and am a generally mellow happy thing and sometimes I want to battle with the tops, pain, starkness and rebellion. We all have different aspects to our personalities and there are lots of subsets to the sweet and action versions of me but sometimes it does seem very pronounced. What's frustrating is that sometimes I can't really control which head space I get into and that's really frustrating.

Right now I feel equally torn about what to save money I don't have for. Part of me is fawning over What Katie Did's adorable pink lace Sarah range for their new spring collection, flowery Vivien of Holloway Dresses and fabulous Mary Green 7 Deadly Sins knickers in pink silk. I am busy totting up what I could afford when if I gave up what (probably eating). Another part of me is plotting my first proper trip in a couple of years this summer and unsure about whether I fancy trekking in Nepal and Tibet, rafting, mountain biking and diving in Central America or climbing and safariing in Africa. I suspect the next few months are going to consist of a battle of wills as I attempt not to spend savings for the summer on more knickers...otherwise it'll be Bognor Regis...or Watford. And there are so many less silly adrenaline sports to be done there...and I'll have to take more then 2 pairs of knickers!

On another note I'm off down South to see the boy interest for the weekend and my case probably displays the disparity in my tastes rather well - in a carry on size bag I have succeeded in packing a corset, pretty underwear and 3 pairs of stockings alongside a ginormous pair of walking boots, thick socks and my favourite trackies...me...complex...never!