The End to my Holidays

I'm sure everyone's aware we are coming to an end of the longest summer holidays we will probably ever have. For me, the holidays end tomorrow so naturally I wanted to make the most of my last day. This unfortunately did not happen.

Yesterday I decided I'd invite everyone to come to the park today, it seemed a fitting ending as we'd spent most of our holidays at the park. I also had to make up for the fact I didn't go a few days ago as just as I was ready to leave my parents decided to take me out. It seemed it was going to be a big meet up and it would be nice to see everybody before we go our separate ways.

So this morning I woke up and went straight to work on my homework, I was set to leave for 12 as it would take me an hour to get there (and I refused to get a bus on account of the expense it is now that I've left school). Just as I was about to leave I realized I need my purse and as my Mum was out I also needed to lock up the house so keys would have been helpful too. So I thought back to when I'd last needed these objects...Thursday...so they were in my red bag.

On Thursday we'd all (when I say all there was 20 of us) gone out for Chinese for the surprise birthdays of Haydn and Cameran. Neither were very surprised but it was a lovely night and the cake was great! Aside from this, I had recently lost my debit card and had had to ring up and cancel it. This meant the only money I had was money I'd put in my money box. This money tended to be bits of change I'd taken out of my purse at the end of the week at school. Luckily I managed to find a few notes though. I'd lost my card while shopping with Beckie a few days ago. This had been an entirely amusing yet not at all useful expedition. The result of which Haydn became a member of one Direction and he has a picture on the back of Harry Style's biography to prove it. The reason we bought this book and other presents was generally because they were the cheaper options.

So anyway I had taken the bus home on Thursday after I was ditched and when I couldn't find my bag today I immediately thought of that bus journey. Surely I would have picked up, I mean I always carry a bag, it appeared not. Just so you know I had checked the house top to bottom and so I went to ring the bus company. This just confused me as it seemed no number was going to take me to lost property so I put the phone down. I was really annoyed at myself at losing the bag, not only had I lost a nice bag I'd also lost my new purse and within that purse was my library card and my Boots card which were not good things to lose.

So it appeared I was stuck at home, well I could still do something useful with my day right? I still had my homework to finish. However, I decided that watching How I Met Your Mother and reading a book about angels would be a much better use of my time. This angels book I'd bought because the blurb said it could believe in angels so I thought it would be an amusing read. I still don't believe in angels, I have a cynical view on the world and I highly doubt angels have the time to find you a parking space but what would I know? I probably can't see them because I have too much negative energy but anyway.

Around three O clock I realsied the bag must be at home as I was still in possession of my phone which had been in the bag on Thursday. So I closed the door and my bag was right there. It was a bit too late to meet the others by this point but I was glad I'd found my things, they weren't in fact lost.

What was now lost was the new debit card that had been sent to me a few days ago. I searched everywhere for this and then I asked my Mum too and it was still lost. Great I had to cancel my card again and that was going to look really suspicious. Just as I was pondering what life would be like if I had to walk into the bank every time I needed money my card appeared on the sofa. I swear it hadn't been there before but there it was.

So in conclusion I missed my last day with my friends. I think we'll meet up sometimes but I'm sure it'll be a lot less frequently and people will start to move on. I will try to make an effort to keep in touch but I'm going to have a lot of work to do now and considering I haven't been to school for three months my brain is suffering as the events today show. We may not keep in touch but I will never forget the people who made my summer and for that I thank them for making this probably the best summer holiday I've ever had.

Rarity.

On the way from James's house earlier today, we headed to the bus stop, so I could catch the bus. Woooaaahhh, that's what you do at the bus stop?

Jim's watch said it was 20 to six, and since the bus wasn't meant to arrive until precisely 18:49, we decided to pop into Spar to see if they sold jelly. Is it just Sheffield or is there always a Spar near a bus stop?

Anyway, as we're wandering round, I notice a bus go past the window. So I ran out of the shop like a common thief! I left James in the shop, looking for jelly, he must have thought I got fed up of searching the shelves.

As I ran up to the bus the doors were closing and I made a sound similar to how I would imagine guinea pig's would burp. Kinda like: Moaoaoaoaoawhwhwh.

To my surprise the bus driver looked at me, half giggle-smiled and opened the doors. Maybe it was something to do with the fact I was holding a mini-plunger and had just made a guinea-pig-burp-noise.

So amid my flurry of thanks and apology, I was trying to open my bus pass. It really wasn't happening, probably due to the adrenaline pumping through my body; or again the fact I was juggling with a mini-plunger.

I think any normal, grumpy bus driver would have lost his temper, but this guy was having a good old giggle-smile and when I finally opened my bus pass, smiled kindly and nodded me onto the bus.

Sat on the bus seat, catching my breath, I starting thinking, we weren't in Spar for ten minutes! What time is it now? It was exactly 18:49. I phoned James to tell him his watch was slow and made check it. His watch was around seven minutes slow.

Luckily, I had the rare beauty of a lovely bus driver, who decided to giggle instead of get mad.

The end or is it the beginning...?

So, now is the time for a bit of procrastination to get out of the horrific amount of homework I've been set over the holidays...

Firstly, as many people have already concluded, these holidays have just flown by. The longest holidays of my life have taken the least amount of time to disappear into nothing but memories. Now that IS sad. Although I have done lots of lovely things over this course of time; seeing friends and family abroad or here in sunny (?) Sheffield.

Secondly, due to the fact that the holidays are practically over this means that school is once again looming. Except for the first time in 12 years (!) I do not have to dress myself in a hideous uniform. This single thing has probably been one of the most exciting things for me about starting 6th form. I don't think people quite grasp how much I loathe uniform, but I shan't have to complain again (you're welcome) and instead can tease my dear little sister endlessly. As well as the whole non uniform thing I am genuinely quite excited about starting a new school, despite the whole 4 buses a day palava. I will have the chance to meet new people and only do the subjects that I really love. Now that IS exciting.

There you have it, my epiphany for today, goodbye.

My Holiday

So a few days ago was our results day, something we'd been waiting for since the beginning of June. I think it's safe to say we all did well and we all got in to where we're going next year. In fact a few of us went out that evening to celebrate! For me though, this day was very tiring as I had only just arrived back from America the day before and when we collected our results was 5am American time making me very sleepy.

My trip to America started 3 weeks before when we flew into JFK airport, in New York. We got a taxi to the hotel, which took a long time considering we had only a few miles to travel because of all the traffic. Our hotel was only 100 yards or so from Time Square which was full of lights, moving adverts and cars, reminding me of Vegas. Luckily the rest of New York wasn't like this and we managed to walk around the streets without too much problem. Much to my disappointment, my English accent was hardly noticed by the Americans and certainly wasn't exciting for them but we did have a few people pick up on it. One of which knew where Sheffield was and about it's steal industry. Whilst in New York we visited Central Park and its zoo (the one in Madagascar); China Town and Little Italy; Staten Island and the Brooklyn bridge. We also saw Wicked on Broadway which was amazing!

After four days in Manhattan we left our little hotel and returned to the airport to pick up a hired car, in this we drove to Long Island. Now you're probably thinking that my parents are spoiling me a little on this holiday but unfortunately this is where the expense ends. My Dad believes in something called "TQP" which basically means spend as little as you can wherever you go. So my family thought it'd be fun to go camping, yes camping in America in the middle of no where. Our campsite on Long Island was pretty amazing though, we were not far from the beach and fireflies flew around at night. The only thing that ruined the campsite was a group of 10 year old Americans who thought it's be fun to come onto our raised platform (where the picnic table's meant to be), despite the fact there was plenty of free platforms near by and sing High School Musical.
Whilst on Long Island we visited the house of a Vanderbilt, basically this was a man who had inherited millions of pounds from his ancestors and spent it on yachting and shooting animals. Unfortunately for me, this kind man had decided to stuff these animals, meaning his house was filled to the brim with dead birds, fish and wild cats, even a polar bear! He had also created a memorial room for his dead son which was filled with African dead animals. The woman that worked there (officially named Barbara or Jodie by us) tried to tell me it was ok that he'd killed all these animals because "the herds were over running back then" yes it's a well known fact that polar bear herds are out of control in the North Pole.

After two days on Long Island we got a ferry across the sea to New London and drove up to near Plymouth. This is where the Mayflower (a ship of Puritans from England) apparently landed in 1620 even though they actually landed in Cape Cod. This apparent landing was basically the theme of the town and they'd even fenced off a rock, calling it "Plymouth Rock" where they supposedly first walked on American soil thus starting a series of rubbish made up by people to attract tourists.
Whilst near Plymouth we took a walk to Cape Cod, it was lovely scenery, a woodland by a swamp where we saw a red squirrel, a mole... and several blood sucking flies. Yes, unfortunately for the barelegged sister and I the flies were hungry and covered in bites, my sister particularly reacted to them and spent the next week covered in massive red splodges. We walked back through a town which was a well known gay friendly town. It was quite nice but a little pretentious, as we walked through we spotted two wedding carriages, there had been a double wedding. I will never understand why anyone would want a double wedding! The camp site we were staying on at this point was one of the worst of the holiday, we had to trek to the toilets and when we got there we often discovered several children throwing frogs at each other and once a woman shouting at her son, telling him that if he didn't stop crying she'd phone the police.

Next we moved to a campsite near Boston. From here we visited a town called Salem which was a place where witch hunting and killing took place in the 1600s. It was slightly distasteful with all the witch merchandise considering a lot of innocent people were killed but a nice town all the same. Later we went to a National park called "the minute man National Park" which is basically where the American freedom from the English began, as this was the place of the first battle. It felt slightly strange being there as an English person, but I could understand why the American's wanted freedom from us. The next day we went into Boston on the tube, the tube had a very enthusiastic speaker or particularly liked the final destination, every now and again we'd here an announcement of "Braintree train!" In Boston we saw more evidence of the American independence from Britain, including the sight of the Boston massacre and the Boston tea party. This was where, because the British were charging tax on the tea imported, the Bostonian's tipped all the tea delivered out into the dock. I believe I may have come back from America knowing too much about American Independence. The next day we visited Harvard and saw the second fake thing of the holiday, the statue of John Harvard, the supposed founder of the university. This is actually incorrect as there wasn't actually an individual founder, it was mostly British people and it was originally called Cambridge. The statue is actually of the sculptors friend, a little awkward when everyone poses by the statue and strokes his foot for good luck.

Next we briefly visited Sheffield in New England (briefly as it was tiny) and then traveled to the Catskills. This is a mountain range and national park and is suitably in the middle of nowhere. The campsite we stayed on here was officially the worst one of the holiday, it will now forever be known as "the mosquito campsite." There was no yield to these mosquitoes as they buzzed around us all day and night, I did become an expert murderer of them however. It is true that we could have probably prevented ourselves from being savaged by these insects but my family, being the TQP people they are, thought that a 1.49 bracelet that they didn't believe would work would be a better option then mosquito repellant but there you go. Whilst in the Catskills we climbed a mountain and saw a snake and a chipmunk.

The final two nights we spent in America were in a hostel. This was a rather hippyish hostel and looked to me like the sort of place you were going to be murdered in in the night. Luckily we weren't. My sister and I found some entertaining books, the first was an illustrated version of Frankenstein, the second was a book written in the 70s called "Open ended Stories". This was a series of stories that didn't end and your class at school had to write the end and answer some questions on them. There were a few entertaining ones, one where a girl finds out she's dating a Nazi and one where a guy smokes some drugs and sees, and I quote a "pink spotty bird in a striped candy cane tree." I'd really like to know what drug this was. The best story was one about a boy called Bill who realized his friend Stan was ignoring him and wearing sunglasses, his skin was also cold, he's turned into a vampire I thought! Unfortunately he also had pinpricks in his arms which means he was addicted to "dope" now I'm not sure what that is in America but in England I'm pretty sure it's cannabis and I don't think you can get addicted to it or inject it either. To make things worse for Bill, his cousin Fred had died robbing a petrol station in order to get money to buy this drug. Bill's Mum had said that someone should have called the Police on Fred so he could have had help before it was too late. Stan said that what had happened to Fred wasn't going to happen to him and the story ended on Bill wondering whether to call the Police on Stan.
After 3 weeks in America we arrived home 12 hours early as our flight was put forward in Ireland. This is a holiday I will never forget and was certainly an experience. For the record, last time I camped in America it was worse as we had to stay in places where there was a danger of bears, no running water and the toilets were just holes in the ground. In fact when we were in Yellow Stone, somebody on the campsite next to us was killed by a bear which didn't worry me as much as it should have. Below is a picture of the New York and the New Jersey skyline from Staten Island, my sister and Dad washing their legs in the sea after the blood sucking fly incident and finally a picture of Stan showing you why you shouldn't get addicted to drugs.



 

 

Mini holiday! ... In Doncaster

I went away for the second time this holiday! Lucky me! :) So lucky in fact I went all the way to Doncaster... In my caravan... With my dad and brother. Hooray!

This may sound like a disaster waiting to happen but it didn't go too badly to be honest, but being me and my luck we did have our fair bit of silliness. Nevertheless we did also have a bit of luck :).

We went to a campsite called Clampit Creek, the attraction being the stage and live music they had over this weekend and the main purpose of celebrating one of dad's colleague's birthday!

We got to the campsite after a minor detour where we thought we were going the wrong way and took a turn off the main road to ask for directions when the next left was the junction for the campsite itself! After setting up the caravan and of course our bat and ball set and net we realised we had lost the football! Disaster..on a campsite at least. Also, on the topic of setting up the caravan, my brother insisted on fetching the water from the tap; instead of getting it from the the tap 20m away he decided the tap at the entrance (other side of the site) was the best one to go to!

After having a rest me and my brother played bat and ball, mainly I won but we both had our fair share of good shots. I asked dad if he wanted to play. Reminding you this was my dad, my brother and me, nothing goes to plan. Basically every shot one of us hit, the other missed. All because dad couldn't see the ball! It was evening but surely you could see the ball. Either way it ended up being quite amusing :).

Next on our very short list of things to do was find tea. I wanted fish and chips so we headed out into the next village to find the chippy was closed. -_- Not the best sight when you're very hungry after some competitive bat and ball! We retraced our steps and came to another village where we found a kebab shop that sold fish and chips. As I was hungry I decided this would do so I got a very regular triangle shaped fish and some chips I watched being fried from frozen... Ñam ñam :S. I was quite disappointed in my fish and chips but this could only get worse as when we drove around the corner, there stood a proper fish and chip shop! My luck living up to be all it can be yet again!

After tea, a triangular-fish filled stomach-ed me and josh decided to search the campsite for our much beloved ball. After searching around every area we could, even finding an abandoned and spooky green caravan in the woods (remember this is late evening now) with its door wide open we retired back to our more homely caravan but without finding our football.

Dad had gone off to listen to the music at the stage but me and my brother were not too bothered as we could hear the music from the caravan and the caravan had warmth and a stock of soft drinks! We set up the beds (that I don't fit in) and my brother decided to set up the bunk bed and sleep on the top despite the fact no one was going to be sleeping on the bottom. :o We heard a strange song being sung that started, "I went swimming this summer, This summer I could have drowned". Well... Not long after this I decided to go to sleep.

Morning!! I woke up to a bright sun wondering how long I had over slept... It was 06:45. Ohh. I had a walk around the campsite still looking out for my football. Getting bored rather quickly I returned to the caravan and jumped back under my sleeping bag (it was opened out like a cover) and kept cosy.

The next thing I know dad walks in with a bacon, sausage and egg muffin that smelt like the best thing in the world ever and it was 9 o'clock! I really didn't want to get up despite happily having a walk two hours earlier but used getting myself a bacon, sausage and egg muffin as an excuse to get ready quickly before they ran out.

I got to the little hut where they were selling the food and asked for my muffin and then one for my brother. Mine cost £2.70, my brother's cost £2.50 and after waiting about 20 minutes for it to be cooked the person said the total was £4.70 or something. I felt like I should point out that she was wrong and did so; knowing myself that the real total was £5.20. She came up with the value of £4.90 which I decided not to complain about and got my breakfast for 30p cheaper.

The call from mum!!! We got a call from mum that morning to see how we all are and it turned out we left the football at home! -_- Just our luck as ever. At least we knew where it was. Packing up I also found the little charm Rach had got me, that I had lost about a week before-ish (I'm a bad person I know!). This made me so happy, in fact happy enough to make my self find signal in a random field on the outskirts of Doncaster and ring Rach :). Inevitably the call quality was terrible but at least she half understood what I was on about.

With all this finding things done with and being happy we packed our things away to head back down the M180... and M18... and then M1 back home.

The moral of the story (monotonous long text) is that caravaning empties your fuel tank... even if you did put £20 of diesel in you car before setting off your adventure!!!

PS: Two pictures, one of the caravan in the distance and the other of a barbers shop with the closest name to mine I have seen! :)

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A holiday I'll never forget

I recently came back from my holiday in France (as of three days to be precise) and it really was a holiday like no other...

I started off going on the Eurostar (by myself!) to Paris to meet my great-aunts and uncle and my second cousin once removed. Very precise, I know but you have to be in these things. So anywho I spent rather a lovely time seeing exhibitions and doing some shopping and it was fab. My actual aunt and uncle and actual cousin also came along, so my family links aren't as tenuous as you first thought, ha! I then set off to Poitiers which is a town further south with my aunt, uncle and cousin. We went swimming, saw my grown up cousins, went to a theme park and played many a game of 'Carcassonne' (a wonderful game that I really can't be bothered to explain to you). I also learnt how to play 'Tarot'. This resulted in lot of laughter and tears...I'm starting to think that any game I play results in laughter and tears, it's supposed to be serious business! Oh dear. Right where was I... Ah yes. Next my younger cousin, me and my older cousins went on a road trip to nothing other than the countryside. I know, how exciting! We went to Marsangy to meet up with said great-aunts and uncle, and second cousin once removed and other aunt and other cousin, and later my own family. Phew. That was a mouthful. Now this is where the fun began. We got slightly lost so asked a cat and dog for directions (they replied!) which turned out to be most useful. Anyway before you get the impression that my mental faculties aren't quite in order, we did get to the house in the end. Our holiday could continue. Mission accomplished, OR WAS IT...

It really wasn't accomplished, as my dear old family travelling all the way from old Blighty had 'tombé en panne' or for non-French speakers 'broken down'. The car wasn't going anywhere and being an MG meant that my dear old Dad's eccentric love for these cars meant that no garages wanted to even look at it. Oh how delighted I was... This resulted in us cancelling our two week stay in Austria. But we are 'Percival's' and 'Percival's' don't give up (veritable cheese I know). We decided after about a week of moaning and various garage trips to go camping in the 'Morvan' with the hire car that was much too small. Now I must add that up until this point the weather had been glorious; sunshine every day and over 30 degrees. But of course in our new tradition of bad luck it was not to be. It chucked it down with rain when we woke up in our tiny tents the following morning. In fact by the evening my tent had dried on the outside but the inside was covered in water droplets. Also with the tent being so small it meant that I couldn't move. It was a joyous time. However we did visit some interesting places: Vezeley, Autun and Mt. Brevey where the old Gaulish village Bibracte was situated. Next we traipsed back to Marsangy to endure the mockery of our great-aunts and uncle (everyone else had left by then). Of course the weather had entirely brightened up now. But we were not to be disheartened, we tried again and headed up north to Normandy, to 'Eu' yes 'Eu' as bizarre as it sounds it is a real place! We stayed in a youth hostel in a room for thirteen people (ironic with our luck I know) and had it to ourselves. I really enjoyed it, we swam in the sea, visited the WW1 trenches and the pretty seaside towns nearby eg. 'Mers les Bains' and 'Le Treport'. So the holiday was not wasted after all. After our three days we headed to Calais in the sunshine and came out in Dover to the rain and cold. A true British welcome.

So there you have a summary of my holiday, I hope you didn't get too bored of my ramblings, I know I did. I shall now leave you in peace... Au revoir!

Make a Stand.

We all know there is injustice in the world, but what if we could change that?

I don't mean go out to impoverished countries ourselves, necessarily, but petitions are out there to change the way goverment prioritise aid.

I recently found out about SoulAction's campaign to stop slavery and I can't think of a better use of 10 minutes than to read what its about and sign the petition.

http://www.soulaction.org/stand/

Please just click the link and read about it, particularly the "What's the issue?" subtitle.

Thank you.

Blogs.

Right, this is for Benjamin, a weird friend of mine.

http://aleapintonothing.blogspot.co.uk/

He has been writing a blog for much longer than we have and has a more unique view on the world.

There is a competition on his blog at the moment, ending on the 5th of September I believe. The challenge is to write a short story and he will post the best one. I'd look at his past posts for details.

http://yourestandingonmyscarf.blogspot.co.uk/

This is his Doctor Who reviews blog where, if you are a true Whovian, you will understand and appreciate his scrawlings.

Please read and follow both of his blogs and ours as well.

Alton Towers.

I felt that I should perhaps write about my Alton Towers experience, seeing as no one else can be bothered to.

Just over a week ago a group of around fourteen of us went on a trip to Alton Towers. We hired a mini bus out for the journey both there & back & it was a proper laugh. Some of the stories told on the journey home are ones that I won't be forgetting for a long, long time.

Once at Alton Towers, we split into smaller groups. In my group there was myself, Tessa, Tom & Leah. Firstly, we went on ''The Smiler''. The queue was unreal & it took over an hour just to get on the ride, but I can honestly say that it was worth the wait. It was literally one of the best experiences. Leah's reaction once the rollercoaster had stopped was priceless!

After going on ''The Smiler'', we proceeded to queue for ''Oblivion'' & let me tell you, the queue was horrendous. These beastly children kept trying to push in front of us all the time. They reminded Tessa of ''Lord Of The Flies'' too, so we decided to start saying the pig chant.

Later on, we went on ''The Flume''. It was great & the picture we had taken was absolutely hilarious. The only downside was that in front of us in the queue there was a lesbian couple who were all over each other. To make things worse, one had dreadlocks & decided that it was really sensible to wear an extremely short dress with no underwear. It was nasty. Very, very nasty.

Our little group arrived back at the mini bus at around 5:15. We were the first to arrive back & were wondering where the others had got to. At 5:30 the others still weren't back & the mini bus driver threatened to leave without them if we couldn't get in touch with them & tell them to run back. After getting in touch, part of the group arrived back after running through Alton Towers, but some of the others decided it would be a great idea to get on the ride they were queuing for and get us into even more trouble with the mini bus driver.

Bar the downfalls, it was a great day & I can't wait to go back.

Life.

Since we're all year 11 and have technically finished Secondary School, you'd think we'd be out partying and living it large or whatever.

In reality, we're skint, bored and lazy!

Admittedly we've have some great days out, but for the main part we sit in the park and accidentally terrify passers-by. Our lives have come to revolve around our stomachs, resulting in many trips to Morrisons, most specifically the ice-cream/sweets aisle.

Some of us went to Alton Towers, but there hasn't been a post about that yet, surprisingly! ( hint, hint )

It's scary to think of the future, we have Results Day on the 22nd of August, which determines if we get into the places we want to go, on the courses we want to do, so that is an extremely pivotal moment in our young lives.

Following that, we're splitting up, provided we get the grades we need, part of the group are staying at the same school but a few of us have decided we want a change and are heading off to other schools around Sheffield. Not forgetting Ashleigh, whose moving half-way across the world!

From September it's going to be hard work and not much free time, so for the moment we're taking it easy and enjoying the long summer!

Cleethorpes -3.7.13.

Yesterday a big group of us went on a seaside day trip to Cleethorpes. It was an early start for us all, as we had to be on our designated buses at 7:30 so that we'd arrive at the train station on time. Once at the station, we went to the platform & had fun browsing through a newspaper & laughing at all the headlines for the latest Wimbledon news stories.


On the train we were rather disappointed. The man had assured us when we had reserved our tickets that we had table seats. These table seats turned out to be seats with fold down tables attached. It's needless to say that we weren't overly impressed.

After a moderately long journey by both train & coach we arrived at Cleethorpes. The weather was quite warm & dull at first, but soon brightened up later on in the day. Firstly, we stopped off at a local chip shop for a bite to eat & went to a cute looking park where we goofed around a little. 

Shortly after we went onto the sea front & stayed there for a number of hours, taking part in numerous activities. We dug massive holes, turned Leah into a mermaid & had running & wheelbarrow races on the sand. It was great fun.

 Turning Leah into a mermaid.

 Tessa, me & our G's.

 Leah the mermaid.

After staying on the beach for five hours or so we decided to hit the shops & go to the amusements. We frittered away many a 2 pence coin on numerous gambling games. Some of us even went on rides.

After a long day out in the fresh seaside air it was time to get on the coach & depart from Cleethorpes. It's safe to say that we all had an amazing day.

Busy, Busy Week.

On Monday, I went to volunteer at a food bank in the morning. I helped packing boxes that would then be delivered. In the afternoon I met with friends and had to label bracelets for a sale today. Around 4 o'clock I met with Ben, Laura and James we had hot chocolates and then played short tennis. Short tennis being tennis played kneeling down in James' back garden.

On Tuesday I went to the park with Beckie, Cam, Nathan, Tom, Leah, Tessa, Theo and Adam. We took photos and played with a frisbee.

Yesterday we went on a day trip to the beach at Cleethorpes. We went by train and coach because of the landslide. We had a great day, Beckie took lots of pictures and we had chips for lunch. James decided to dig a hole and we had fun racing up and down the beach. It may have been cloudy but it was still nice and warm.

Today I am painting my nails for prom tomorrow and later on selling bracelets I labelled on Monday.

Tomorrow is prom so I am getting my hair done at 3 o'clock and prom starts at 7. I am looking forward to taking lots of pictures there.

Overall this week has been very busy. I hope next week isn't as hectic as next week was!

A week from Leaving

So a week ago today I finally left Meadowhead, a place that for five years has been home to some of the best and worse times of my life. So now I have what seems to be an endless holiday in which I should probably be doing something useful with my time and have I? No, not at all.

So what did I do with my first day of freedom? Went back to school of course! I then went to the park, what a useful first day.

The next day was a slight improvement. Clara, Louise and I decided to test run the route to our new school. This resulted in a day of Clara and I completely losing it, making up a romcom about Louise and probably making her double think having to put up with us for the next two years. The school we're going to is in a posh area and so we're surrounded by private schools. Although Rachel had warned me of this the day before, I had not prepared myself properly. The first child I saw was about six and was wearing a tie, a shirt, a blazer, grey shorts and long socks! It is brilliant, I recon everyone should wear them, life would be a lot more entertaining (just picture it.) Our second encounter was from three people, who we thought were business workers in all black, skirts and blazers. But then we realised that there were a lot of people dressed like this, and having a second look at the boys tie, realised that this was their school uniform. Next years going to be fun I can safely say.

Thursday was probably the most productive day of all without it actually being useful to anyone at all. I spent the afternoon standing on my old primary school field, in the rain helping out at sports day. It was my job to hand out first, second and third place, a fairly simple and helpful job you may think. Well maybe if you are able to do it well. Unfortunately I couldn't, I'm pretty sure I handed it out wrong quite a few times-this was a bad thing for me to do, I mean, these kids might have lost out on stickers that were rightfully theirs! The egg and spoon race was the most traumatic as the kids seemed to get a bit excited towards the end and sort of threw their eggs over the line, resulting in disqualification. In one race first and second place went to the people who came last and second to last. One thing I did learn though, is that disqualifying a bunch of eight year olds is a lot of fun!
So that evening, James and I decided to go to the unit (for those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically scouts) as we later realised that the last time we'd been was four months ago, Valentines day in fact (there's no better way to spend Valentines day than eating garlic bread and sorting out your DofE route, obviously). So at the unit it was our task to put up the fences for Splashdown (if you don't know what that is I'm not going to bother explaining) so sure, this seems a useful task, well again, maybe if you actually succeed to do it. All we achieved from the evening was to turn one of the members into a superhero (mechanic boy) and give up building fences. I'm honestly surprised that there's been no story on the news about a fence squashing some little kid. I think the most useful thing to come out of the evening was to enlighten James of the new Bruno Mars song.

At the weekend we went away to Stratford and stayed on the campsite, where, upon our last visit, I was totally terrified. A man had started shouting at people to shut up calling people "snotty nosed northerners and threatening to slash people's tents. Even though we weren't speaking I couldn't help thinking, he's talking to me, I am northern after all. The next day we decided to be sophisticated and went to see Shakespeare by the Royal Shakespeare company. They had added music in so I was quite happy, if not slightly annoyed by the cast being so talented that they could act, sing and dance so well. I think this was probably the most useful thing I did this week.

The next two days I didn't really do anything, and thus concluded my highly unproductive week. To top it all off I seem to have failed to add a picture into this text. All well maybe I'll do better next week.

THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING!

So the past few days have been pretty odd to say the least.
Saturday was rather average until I attended an 18th birthday party, needless to say beverages of the alcoholic sort were served and me being a fool went ever so slightly extremely overboard. Anyway I remember saying some pretty idiosyncratic remarks but one particular one actually made sense, however I just struggled to put it into words, so here it is; 

Okay, it's nearly that time of year again when they tell us we have to change our clocks. Actually, to be clear, we change the time, not the clocks. I wish somebody had told me that last year. Would've saved me a couple trips to Ikea.

And in March, we move the time ahead one hour. Here's a short poem to help you remember: "Spring forward, fall back." Except when I fall, I usually fall forward. And if I ever spring, it's usually up. But that's my issue, not yours. Either way, we lose an hour.

Now if anyone knows why it's called Daylight Saving Time even though we lose an hour, please let me know. A better name would be Daylight Changing Time. Come to think of it, it's so weird that we can change the time, don't you think? I mean, don't clocks mean anything? What's to stop us from saying it's Thursday, even though it's clearly Monday? That would be terrible. Especially if I rented a movie from Netflix. I'd automatically be four days late!

And what about lunch? That's going to be a train wreck. Who's hungry at 11? Well, Me, I suppose so I'll have to eat breakfast an hour earlier. That's going to throw off my whole morning. Oh boy, I better go figure this out.

Anyway, aside from that Today was odd too, Haydn, Nathan and I had to go to school for an ever so slightly exceedingly pointless meeting, although we learnt how to play zombie dodgeball, which will be awesome for in the park. It's hard to explain, so I'll leave it here for now.

Rummikub and Killer Bunnies.

So today was interesting, competitive and frankly quite peculiar.

It all kicked off at two o'clock when Benjamin and Rachel arrived. They brought their hilarity (eg. and I quote "wibbling the door knocker") whilst I held the keys that would unlock a crazy afternoon: Rummikub, millionaire shortbread and Killer Bunnies. 

The supposedly quite sane and menial game Rummikub turned out to be much too complicated for dear Benjamin which resulted in many laughs and cries of despair, specifically when he ended up winning...

With one game under our belts we felt pretty confident, confident enough to try our hands at the notoriously silly game that is Killer Bunnies. Never have I played a more destructive game; bunnies were being killed left right and centre from weapons such as 'cheeseballs' and the 'laser gun' alike. Carrots were won and lost and everyone's competitive side came out, which led to some cheeky bargaining and Rachel being distraught when I won the game.

I should probably mention that during this time James had turned up. Befuddled by the game (and our shouting) he decided to count carrots and money.

Thus the afternoon was gone; we caught a glimpse of a rather tame, nervous lion named Smudge and that was that, everyone went home. 






 

Dancing In The Park!

Yesterday I was in the park with Rachel, Cameran, Beckie and Dim. :)


It turns out we didn't go to the park in the rain for nothing, but to discover Cameran's secret talent. HE CAN DANCE!!!

He can't believe it himself!

He showed off his moves dancing to Hips Don't Lie by Shakira, twerking away and singing along too. 

VIDEO TO COME LATER :D

Computer Catastrophe

So the other day I was going through the my documents folder and I found a weird file.
It was in a format my computer didn't recognise and the name of the file was Cozur_Snowy_Grass_What so I assumed it was a file for one of my games that had got lost.
Anyway I tried to open this file in paint (since it sounded like a texture file) BUT I forgot to click a box down at the bottom of the window that said:

The file was actually a link to the image so, because I hadn't unticked this box, EVERY link in my whole computer was now opening in paint!
To put that in perspective, if you wanted to open Google Chrome, you couldn't just click the link on the desktop, you would have to go and wade through the the C drive to find it.
Like this: C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

Once I was finally on the internet, I searched for ways to fix my problem. There were 3 ways that were given to me to fix it:

1. Pay Microsoft to fix it
2. Recode the computer
3. Download a file that would recode the computer

By this point I was getting desperate, I even asked Nathan for help. (He just laughed and left me to sort it myself.) Then after an hour I found out that it could be simply fixed by using the control panel... I felt so stupid.

In case anyone else gets the same problem I will add a link to the page that helped me.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/my-files-are-all-opening-under-the-same-program/4f53f4c8-4a8a-4fbf-8d44-603753a5da76

Can't wait!

Duke of Edinburgh expedition this weekend, can't wait, it is going to be painful but we will push through it. :-)

I had a Happy Meal.

Hello World!

Today I had a Happy Meal after completing mission impossible -I'll explain about that more a different time...

Anyway, I ordered my usual chicken nugget Happy Meal with coke & it was heaven. Absolute heaven. I was order number 98 of the day & I got another ''Despicable Me'' toy with it, too! I've decided to start a collection. They're just so adorable. Awh. Minions are great.

Trip to Town.

Headed into town today with James to try and find some shiny spiral hair accessories for Prom.

The chaos started as we got off the bus, I should mention at this point Jim is rather dopey! I asked if he wanted to grab a pasty before hitting the shops, he agreed. Then promptly walked in the opposite direction to the bakery right in front of him.

We got the shiny spiral hair things in the first shop, and then headed to find James a belt. You'd think it would be easier to find a belt for a guy than hair things for a girl.
Not Jim.
We must have spent an hour in TKMaxx looking at belts, each being dismissed as quickly as the last!

Surpirsingly we didn't find him a belt, but he bought some bracelets... They weren't even on his mental list.

The fun continued as we walked past a guy doing market research or charity work, the conversation went a little like this:
Man:"Hi, are you two friendly?"
Jim:"No! Oh wait?"
Rachel:*laughs at the confused look on Jim's face*
Jim:"I don't understand"
Man:"Can I talk to you about..."
Jim:"Ohh nononono"
It's safe to say we got a few funny looks!



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Lets get this party started!

Okay. So I figured I'd get this kick started.

So today I managed get the frisbee stuck in the tree a couple times. Just as we were leaving the park I think I got it stuck up there for good, probably for as long as we live. It's a good thing Cam only found it on the floor anyway. I plan to buy two or three more anyway because frisbees are awesome!

I'll also try my best to buy some feet lollies for everyone! Yay!

Well that's all I've got for now.














Ducks.