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.