I am about to go on holiday! At last, it has felt like a long wait this year, we decided to take a later holiday due to my daughter job hunting and some other commitments. It has certainly been a busy few months and I feel ready for the break. But before I went I really wanted to get back to a healthy weight, improved overall health and regular exercise - weight management during menopause is a challenge isn't it!? I just wanted to feel better, having had a stressful few months with hormonal changes, HRT issues and a return of my menopause symptoms. I talked about midlife body confidence on my blog recently, but I am still a work in progress!  Weight loss is not my main goal but improving my eating habits and having a better exercise routine as well as embracing a healthy lifestyle is!​

I knew I'd allowed my routines to slip. I knew I was drinking a bit too much wine (lockdown I blame you), I knew my meal planning and healthy eating had gone a bit awry! I knew I'd got lazy about meal prep and that skipping lunch had become a bit too common, then making do with unhealthy snacks later in the day. And I'd also not found an exercise routine I was able to stick to. - I love the massive benefits of strength training but I don't want to do an hour in the gym and I never seemed to find the right YouTube videos to give me consistency. I wanted to make simple adjustments but I needed some help!
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​This is a gifted blog post.

Towards the end of lockdown, I met Nikki from Creative DeZigns for the first time, she had got in touch with me to ask if I would be interested in working with her, trying some of the styles from her lovely range of cotton and sustainable clothing and maybe sharing my thoughts on the blog.  I suggested we meet up and chat, I wanted to find out more about her and her small ethical fashion business.  We hit it off immediately and I loved her story.  I loved the clothes too!  So I asked if Nikki would be happy to share her story in more detail on my blog.  So here it is, as part of my (somewhat irregular) Embracing Life (in Midlife) series.

In this interview series, I invite inspirational women, normal women like you and me, who are busy getting on with it all and keeping all the plates spinning, to tell me about their life and their business.  I am always amazed at their stories.  And I am very impressed with how they manage to do it all. 

Nikki is no exception, she has two grown up children, she spent a large part of her childhood growing up in South Africa and she then took over Creative DeZigns form her mother and has enjoyed taking the business in a new direction whilst staying true to its original ethos.  

I really loved reading Nikki's responses to my questions, I am sure you will agree, that she is certainly very talented and very inspirational.  Do take a few moments to read what she has to say and support her small business!  I've been looking forward to sharing this post!