I Defy Gravity

Photographic evidence:

This is one of the many painful things I learnt to do over the summer. However, turns out that the Southampton pole class was going easy on me, because the first one back up north well and truly kicked my ass. My ribs and abs and legs hurt for days afterwards. Jo, wonderful taskmaster that she is, had us doing splits up the pole. As in, one foot on the floor at the base, and one up the pole somewhere over my head where no foot was ever meant to be.

In other news, it's raining again. I don't think I've had one properly sunny day since I got back. I love you, Manchester.

Keep on Movin'

Moving is difficult.

5am Saturday, my mum shakes me awake. Turns out my plan to stay awake all night failed, I’d passed out around 4am whilst watching Charlie’s Angels. As a result, I was grumpy and lethargic, but I managed to pile the rest of my belongings into the back of the van and pour myself into my seat. I was planning on taking a nap on the 5 hour drive up, but there was a spider on the windscreen pretty much right in front of my face, so I spent the whole time keeping one eye on it in case it moved. It did. I screamed.

We eventually reached Manchester, where I picked up my keys and began dragging my stuff in. I’m the first one here as Nyck doesn’t move in until Monday, so I got to choose where everything goes and how best to decorate. The flat is actually bigger than I remembered, and had been suitably tidied and fixed up, although the toilet didn’t flush at first so we had to call the maintenance guy. He was over pretty fast, and used a blowtorch to fix it. This was epic.

Sunday was more relaxed, although when I went to make my breakfast the cooker blew up. Go figure. Same maintenance guy came to fix it, and couldn’t, so I’ve been living off of microwave meals. They promised to fix it Monday, they didn't. I told Nyck to call them on Wednesday, he didn't. They came over yesterday, and simply disconnected the hobs (which were the broken part) so we were able to use the oven at least. Why didn't they do that Sunday?! Hobs won't be fixed until Monday, when we will be getting a brand new set. Hooray! And I'm glad I can use the oven now, even if it did take a while to figure out that the oven timer has to be on before the oven will heat anything. Stupid useless feature.

Despite teething problems, It's been fun being back. A few friends came to join me on Monday, we had chinese food and got drunk and stayed up until about 5am. The same few friends (with the absence of Manny) came over on Tuesday, when we invented our own Jurassic Park drinking game, and then decided to play drink-cheat (you know, the card game. with drinking). Then Michael taught us a card game where he wasn't allowed to tell us the rules. I picked it up really quickly, nobody else did. Hilarity ensued.

Anyway, I'm all settled in now, and Richard is coming up to visit me tonight. Until then, however, I am confined to the library, writing essays that didn't quite make it in with last year's batch of work.

Pictures, taken on a rubbishy phone camera:

Lounge.World's comfiest sofas.

Bookshelf. And toad.

Kitchen, with still-broken hobs.

Fridge, complete with lolcat fridge magnets.

Part of the kitchen window ledge. Some of my most prized kitchen posessions.

Bathroom.

Bedroom.

And again.

Bangers 'n' Mash

If you're wondering what the hell that is, then you're thinking the same thing that I was when I discovered it atop my lounge cabinets. I swear I've never seen it before in my life, and yet it's collected enough dust to suggest it hasn't been moved once in the nine years we've been living in this house. Maybe we really do have a ghost.

Past couple of days have been hectic; I had my final pole session at Pole Position (for a while, at least), as with my return to the glorious Manchester comes my return to my beloved Rock and Pole. I managed some cool stuff, which I have pictures of, but my camera is being stubborn and refuses to connect to my laptop. The only photos I can access are my phone pictures. Hence the cow statue.

That evening I undid any good the excersise may have done to my body by consuming a vast amount of chinese food. I have no regrets.

Today, I transformed back into a six year old and went to Legoland with seven other giant children (otherwise known as my friends). Reece and David span the teacups so hard I felt like I'd been playing ring of fire with straight tequila, and Spoh (who organised the whole event) got her head stuck in a lion. I bought myself a new set of kitchen scales. They look something like this:

I am now off to the casino, where I shall spend money and hopefully win some back. Wish me luck!

IT'S MY LIIIIFE...

Yeah, I have just re-discovered my weird love of Bon Jovi. Especially this song. It's actually kind of ringing true for me right now, what with all these outside factors trying to affect what I want to do. I'm stubborn though, so there's not much that's going to stop me doing what I have my mind set on. Right now I'm just enjoying the feeling of rebellious teenage nostalgia (yes, I listened to Bon Jovi when I was a teenager). I feel like I should curse loudly, or get something pierced, or abuse some addictive substances, or do something dangerous like severing a limb*. Ah, life as a pubescent youth was fun.

Alas, grown up** life is not as carefree. I'm currently packing everything I own into boxes, ready for the big move on Saturday. This move feels so much more important than the previous two, because I will no longer be living in student halls. I will be responsible for bills (okay, one bill), and I will be allowed to decorate, and - most importantly - I am able to put up a pole in the lounge. It's all incredibly exciting, and I've been bugging my former-and-soon-to-be-again flatmate far too much with random texts about decor and room layouts and whether or not we can have a hamster (we can. He shall be named Kenzie).

*Disclaimer: I am most likely not going to do any of these things.
**Meaning 'aged 18+ and living independently', not meaning 'mature'.

Consumerism!

So apparently I always love shopping. It doesn't have to be for clothes or shoes or CDs, it can be for anything. Even the little chore-like stuff, such as groceries.

The shopping trip I embarked upon today was for uni stuff; the kind of mundane trip most people consider a mild annoyance. But when I found a 39p toilet brush, I was ecstatic. 79p bath mat? Get in my trolley! I managed to colour coordinate everything for my new bathroom using the cheapest items I could find for a total cost of under five british pounds. That's a skill right there.

The kitchen items were no less exciting. I am now the proud owner of an offensively pink colander and a 99p frying pan.

I probably need to get out more.

"Oh, it's one of THOSE days."

The lights here are flickering in a rather eerie manner, most likely due to the sudden rainfall and the dodgy electrics, and almost certainly not (as my sister used to argue) because there is a ghost living in our stairway.

Seems like the perfect time to start a new blog, if you ask me.

Spooky lighting aside, my day has been both hectic and rather uninteresting. I was dragged into work at 10:30 am, five short minutes after I had rubbed the gunk out of my eyes and sat up in bed. At work, there was approximately ten more issues than it was possible to solve in the time I was there. I left work three hours later, feeling drained after having fixed the scanner, invoiced some people, taken a few phone calls that were not meant for me, created some spreadsheets and gotten dragged into a business meeting when I dropped off some paperwork.

The reason I had to leave the office early was because my younger brother starts college tomorrow, and did not have any of the required supplies other than the graphic calculator I had given him once I had canned maths for good at the end of my A levels. So into town we went, thinking about half an hour and forty quid should cover it. One out-of-service cashpoint, a mad dash across town, a disorganised stationary store (somewhat ironic) and a hell of a queue later, we had spent all my brother's money and had still not obtained everything he needed, because apparently these days a schoolbag costs thirty quid. What the hell, WS Smith's?

However, it's the little things that make your day. Once we were home with all the required goods, and I had shown Stephen the correct way to organise all his college folders, I turned to my pile of post. One of my magazine subscriptions came with free tea bags, so life is good again.