The old times August 30, 2009

After looking through many hundreds of old photos today and just discussing with Spoon a dream I had (involving a jet engine and a massive parachute type thing made from black paper) I began to think of the things that used to occupy me and my fellow peers in our childhood years. These days kids have Xboxes….PS3s….Nintendo whatevers, but back in my day I was occupied by many a simpler thing. At the age of 1-2 for example one of my very favourite things to play with was a tumble dryer sheet.

Humble tumble dryer sheet.

 What I would do is stand on the edge of the patio facing the grass and throw the tumble dryer sheet. It wouldn’t go far, of course, being only a tumble dryer sheet, but it would make me laugh. Then I would go pick it up again, resume my spot and restart the process…throw….laugh…pick up. Hours of fun.

My brother on the other hand had a thing about the simple kitchen sieve. It could be used as a hat or a guitar, whatever took his fancy.

 

 

 Another game of mine was the shopping game. Again when I was about 2 or 3. I would get a tea towel and put it over my shoulders…this was my coat. I would get a few items from the kitchen, such as the little tiny jug that was used to put water in the iron and place them strategically around the front room. I’d collect the empty lego bucket and off I would go…’shopping.’ I’d put the items in and then return “home” again, taking off my “coat” and hanging it up. Again, hours of fun.

And of course….there are boxes. Empty cardboard boxes. A favourite of any child. You get in them, personally, I would pretend my box was a boat, but of course they could be anything you wished. The humble box. Costs little but entertains for hours. Till it falls apart.

Kind of like the original Xbox hee hee.

Summer love…an incredibly long, tedious post….nothing more than a big moan. August 22, 2009

The Warwick Castle blog is progressing slowly…

I feel I have moaned on to Joy far too much about what’s currently on my mind, that poor girl, every time her phone goes she must be like ‘oh not again….’ and as Daniel is far away in Europe and Lin has many many of her own problems to deal with, I’m going to have a little rant and rave on here. Cathartic.

So, a while ago, at ye olde Oak, I met a person. Let’s call him….Tony. Well I met him at the jolly Phoenix first, months before hand. I thought nothing of him. Then I saw him the week before the one in question, he introducted himself “Hi I’m Tony!”….”I know.” I replied, “We’ve met before.” to which he hugged me as a reply. Anyway. The week in question, we were all dancing, as one does, when he friend shouted over the music to me “He really fancies you!” “No he doesn’t” I replied. All of this whilst Tony carried on dancing in his own world. We left for ye olde Oak. Outside we stood. I had tonsilitis at this point in my life, for the record. He offered to buy me a drink, I didn’t want to accept because I don’t like people buying things for me, it makes me feel guilty and like they owe me things. So I of course said no, I was fine. He told the barman to recommend anything for a sore throat and I got given brandy and lemonade (which did help, but that’s not the point) and we stood outside. He was very attentive, sitting with me and Sir Sue. A man, called me attention and told me I had a nice bum. I was offended and embarrassed and so walked off, whilst Sir Sue spoke to the man and Tony followed me trying to stop me being offended and embarrassed. Towards the end of the end we were holding hands (that’s literally it) but it was really nice. We got a cab home, I always get dropped off first, so I left and thought nothing more of it other than what a nice evening I had had. It turns out he got dropped off at Sir Sue’s house so he could get my number from her phone which had died halfway through the night. She couldn’t find her charger. So he found me on Facebook.

He was persistent. He got my number. And texted me constantly. He told me I was beautiful, lovely, an angel, amazing, perfect. All the nice compliments a woman likes to hear. And yet I remained cautious, I was attracted to him but I wasn’t going to be swayed so easily. I didn’t know him. We met each other out the week later at the same place. To be fair, I was getting annoyed with him at this stage. He was very persistent, I’m not used to that level of attention and he followed me around all night long. Looking back, it was sweet really. Towards the end of the night he had backed off and he walked home with me and the usual crowd. We stood at the bottom of my road, me insisting he wasn’t walking me home as I didn’t want him to know where I lived (sensible see?) so we stood there, literally until dawn broke, chatting and hugging (see an earlier blog).

 Later,  he asked me out on a date, so I accepted. We went to the cinema, he wore a shirt, it was lovely. We stood on the corner of my road talking for about 3 hours about nothing. Again, it was lovely, but I was still very cautious about the whole thing. My heart was like YAAY whereas my head was telling me not to get caught up lest I get hurt again. Two days later I was hit with swine flu (see earlier blog), in this blog I mentioned a friend who came round with a get well soon kit. This was him. I told him I had swine flu, he was the most caring person ever. Insistent that he must come and at least see me to check I was living, despite my constant protest at him not doing so incase he caught it. He brought films round, we watched them, although in my feverish state I completely forgot one of them we watched and the whole conversation that ensued but this amused him at a later date. He cuddled me and made sure I took my tablets and drank water. This swayed me a lot to be more open with him and let him into my life a bit more. Surely someone who could care for me so much wouldn’t end up hurting me?

The next time we met, again at Ye Olde Oak he sat me down. Holding my hand, as he shuffled nervously, he said meekly, “I know we’ve not known each other for ages, but I like you so much, I care so much about you and I don’t want to be with anyone else….hah I feel like I’m in year 7 I’m so nervous, but yeah, I want to be with you, you’re amazing, will you go out with me?” I chuckled. How romantic? It all seemed very gentlemanly and Pride and Prejudice, so I said yes. My head warned my heart yet again, but my heart was swelled with happiness. He was happy too. He kept telling me again and again. Even the next morning.

So we were boyfriend and girlfriend. Cool. We met. We dated more. We watched movies together. I told him of my social issues just to forewarn him of any bizarre behaviour on my part. He said and I quote “you would have to physically put me on a rocket ship to space to get me to leave you.”

Then things changed. The day after the last time we met he seemed quiet. He insisted it was to do with work, I was relieved. The next day, I heard very little, other than his insistance that he was OK, I’d done nothing wrong and there was no reason for his being off. The following day followed the same pattern, with more quietness again. I became quite agitated, worried and upset that it was something I had indeed done. His birthday followed this, he seemed off again. He did not want to see me. This behaviour (and worry on my part) carried on for another 3 days. I gave him space during once of those days and didn’t speak to him at all, thinking it would help. It didn’t. So I told him. He told me he was sorry, that he was a depressed alcoholic and couldn’t be with anyone. I didn’t understand. What had suddenly gone so wrong?  I told him to tell me straight. He did. Apparently he had previously been engaged and year and a half before he had met me. I don’t know what happened between them, but apparently I was the first girl he had cared about since. In caring for me, he felt suicidal and guilty, especially when I wasn’t there. He “couldn’t bear to drag me down” and was much better off alone, he should have never got close to me and blah blah blah. He couldn’t be in a relationship. End of.

So after the weeks of chasing me, of me not being particularly interested and then finally swooned….it was over. With me being the broken hearted one and him being able to bury it, not think about it, out of sight out of mind in his conscience. It still hurts. But there’s nothing that can be done. I did of course pray about the situation. I know God won’t give me more than I can handle and I know I can handle this and I will be right as rain soon enough. But it’s still hard. Especially over the summer whilst I have little else on my mind, the whole situation replays itself depressingly in my mind. I feel very down about it all, it’s a knock to my confidence and my already fragile trust in people generally. But as Gloria Gaynor rightly sang….”I Will Survive…”

Feeling Frank May 29, 2009

I watched the BBC1 programme about Tourettes. The frankness of John Davidson and Greg Storey was refreshing. It made me think about mental health in general and also in particular relation to my own mental health.

I, like the FP, believe there shouldn’t be a stigma around mental health. People shouldn’t feel ashamed of their mental health problems. And as the FP often says, if anyone was to have a wooden leg for example and they needed help or wanted to talk about it, there would be no stigma in that. Mental health issues are different, you can’t see them, you can only see the effects. Inspired by Greg Storey and John Davidson, I’m going to open up a bit about my own mental health problems. One in particular. The one that rules my life.

If you are one of my friends who reads this blog, you’ll already know what I’m on about. If you read this blog regularly, you may or may not have noticed I often say how nervous I am about things, or how I dread them. Why? I have Social Phobia that’s why.

Not many people really understand it. I have few friends who know I have it and even fewer who are supportive of it. Some get annoyed by it, by the fact I physically can’t make myself do the things they do. For example, at the age of 14, now this will sound ridiculous, but I didn’t feel I could even stand by the edge of the road by myself to cross it. I had to have someone with me. Everything I did, I had to have someone with me. I was/am afraid of other people, of being judged, teased, thought about negatively. It often shows itself in the form of a panic attack. The first panic attacks I used to have, weren’t the stereotypical “I can’t breath” types, although breathing was an issue. If I saw people and it was a rare occasion on which I was on my own, I would hold my breath so they couldn’t see an increase in my breathing rate, my heart rate would soar so high, my mind would be in a panic and I’d often end up going a completely different direction to what I should be going in, in order to avoid the people. Often that meant getting a bit lost and in more of panic. It amuses me to think of actually. And still, even know, I get the urge to go another way when I see a group of people. Difference is, now I can logically see the ridiculousness of that and ignore it.

At my very worst, I had a fear of getting panicky when I was out. I’m very lucky it didn’t take the form of agoraphobia. And that’s not to say I don’t have supportive friends. I do have some amazingly supportive friends and without them, goodness knows where I’ll be. There are also those who I feel I have lost due to having it, but that’s OK.

Another symptom of my social phobia is I will analyse for hours and hours and hours anything I have said to people. Every conversation I have sticks in my mind and I go over them thinking “I hope they didn’t think I meant this…” “I hope I didn’t look as awkward as I felt.” “I hope they didn’t take that in the wrong way.” Again at my very worst I’d have to hit myself in the head and shake it a bit to stop. This is one of the symptoms that has stuck with me. Even writing comments on people’s blogs I go away thinking….eeek.

Some people gloss over my social phobia. They’ll say stuff like “oh I have that too.” But not to be rude to them, they don’t. If they did, they’d be like me, behind everyone else socially, only just branching out and being able to do stuff. Everything I do now,, because I do so much more alone, takes so much effort. It can be exhausting. Working as a volunteer….I spend the whole day feeling really panicky. Etc etc. Some people think being a social phobic is just being shy. That’s not true, although I am extremely shy too. But shyness isn’t feeling panicky in a queue for something, incase you get looked at funny or judged for what you are buying.

Writing this post has been extremely cathartic, although it may not make entertaining reading for many, I hope it at least provides some insight into social phobia. And it has allowed me to practice what I preach in that I shouldn’t be ashamed of having it. And I’m not ashamed of having it, but I am slightly ashamed of the person it has made me, or rather who I was and no longer who I am. And for the record…I’m quite nervous about publishing this.

Dear me at 15. April 30, 2009

Completely inspired by this and therefore the idea is completely ripped off from Stephen Fry. But nevertheless, it seems blog-worthy, non? I chose to write to my 15 year old self as 5 years ago is a nice round figure and 4 years seemed too recent…

A letter to my 15 year old self (a lot of what I probably want to say won’t be said….privacy yeah?) *Tries to think back to being 15, despite only being 20*

Dear Me,

How do you start a letter to yourself? I know I used to and still do wonder if the future me ever thinks of the past me……I do! And will….boy this is confusing. So, hello!

I know things seem really tough at the moment. Things will get tougher for a while, especially in terms of finding out who your friends are and who you’re better off without. They’ll also get tougher when you start to realise you don’t look like every other girl, in that you try to look a bit like a boy most of the time. 5 years from now though, you will have embraced your femininity and actually start to feel fine about the way you look.

School is hard for you at the moment, I know. And you’re fully embracing the “angst ridden teen” status that society seems to subject to all those under 20. You’re recognising that you’re not like everyone else, everyone else seem to be able to do things on their own….and you don’t. Ultimately, this will cause a lot of problems for you I’m sorry to say. But it isn’t your fault. People just don’t understand. But they will. And it will get better. It’ll take time though, but each step you take is one more step to freedom.

Someone who has always been in your life will come into your life even more so in a few years. Your good old sister (whom we now call the FP for the record). You have to try listen to her a bit more, she speaks sense sometimes and isn’t as moody as she  makes out.

You certainly have the right attitude towards your school work though, keep up with that ‘cos you’re going to do so well in your GCSEs. Just remember when you get your results, that 3 B grades isn’t a bad thing. And just so you know, Health and Social Care might seem nice and easy now, but it’s dreadfully boring at A Level….I’d advise against taking it.  Take History or German, much better.

I think you should also enjoy the nice peachy skin you have now, it’s not always going to be that way. Focus on your good points and the rest will catch up with you in time, for sure. I know you cry a lot now. And have developed a hatred for human contact. But hugs are actually quite nice from those you like. I promise things will get better, but summer is going to be hard for you. Ignore all the people who pick on you though, you’ll come to see how insecure they actually are of themselves soon enough.

Ah I remember the crush at this time, you still like Sven* (Name changed)  non? Well let me tell you, when you get to about 18 things will be great with Sven for a time, actual reciprocal lust, but it so isn’t worth it. Between you and me (even though you are me)….oh and the readers of the blog….he turns out to be not so great, he’s now engaged as a joke and is very much into drugs. But y’know, experiences experiences, they all help in the long run. It may not be worth it but you gained a lot of knowledge from it. At least you know what not to look for now.

You’re going to miss school a lot when you leave. It’s actually quite amusing….you cry loads on your last day of Year 11, then begin to loath going in 6th form. You don’t cry on the last day of 6th form, no one does. Although you do cry the last time you see Rosie and Daniel before you go to Uni. They do too. It’s really hard, brings tears to my eyes even now. You won’t stay in touch with everyone….people you think will stay in touch with you don’t and more surprisingly, those who you don’t expect to keep in touch with you actually do. You make really good friends with Joy for the record, you should go speak to her now, she’s very lovely. Don’t talk to her about spoons though, she’s not developed that pretend obsession yet. Daniel stays a good friend too, despite your ups and downs. When he’s trying to keep which university he chose a secret…know this from me….he chose Cambridge, not Wolverhampton like he pretended.

One last thing before I go. You should spend more time with Nan. Get in touch with the FP, she goes to see her. She’s not going to live much longer and you will regret not getting to know her a bit better.

And with that, I’ll leave you to it, it’s a Friday for you, I guess you’ll be relieved it’s the weekend. You might go to town with Daniel tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend and try not to worry too much about PE on Monday, it’ll be tennis anyway and you like that Oh and always remember….your faith is as important in 5 years time as it is to you now.

Love to you…or to me,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(NB I can’t be bothered to spell check, or to grammar check or to even make anything emphasised in italics….sorry)

2008 December 31, 2008

Ah 2008. Where has it gone? It’s been a good year. Most certainly. My last full year of being a teenager and I’ve actually become an old woman. Never mind.

January: Erm…what happened in January? My memory doesn’t go back that far.

February: I believe this was the month of the earthquake that scared the living daylights out of me. It was quite exciting though.

March: I think the world war 2 bomb was found in town…consequently I was trapped as they blocked off the exits that lead to my route home, but after many phonecalls and the help of a kind gentleman, I found my way through the horrible rough subway and back home.

April: My 19th birthday was celebrated. Did anything else happen? I don’t know.

May: Exaaaaams. Which I passed. Woop. The end of May was the start of the tediously long summer holidays in which there was no good weather.

June: Can’t really remember, the summer months blended in to one. Ooooh Prince Caspian was released.

July: I believe it was the Godiva festival, which was good but bad. Good in that it was a jolly good laugh, bad in that it poured it down with more rain than I’ve seen in ages. Trips to Stratford and Hampton in Arden were also taken.

August: Mamma Mia! In London. Amazing. Other things may have happened…which I don’t recall.

Sept, Oct and Novemeber: Good months, Uni months, hard work.

December: A really really good Christmas, happy times

2009: Will be a year of change. Really hard work, challenges and hopefully it will be….fruitful. Yes.

Happy New Year!

Remembrance Sunday November 8, 2008

Lest We Forget

 

Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday. A day for us to remember our fallen soldiers in all the wars we’ve been in. When I was younger I didn’t really understand the importance of Remembrance Day, but as I’ve got older and particularly as I’ve done my family history research it’s become a lot more poignant. One of my Grandads was in the RAF in World War 2.  We have one of his log books, in which he had to write everything they did. His main job was an aircraft gunner. He used to fly in a Defiant and then a Sunderland plane (they’re those planes that can land on water), one of them a T9111. They mainly bombed ships. My other Grandad was a fireman, he mainly worked in Coventry, so whenever we got bombed he obviously helped try put out the fires. He went to London too. He was a voluntary fireman, he was actually a barber before and after the war. Then there’s my Great Grandad (or possibly my Great Great Grandad…they both have the same name see), he was a Prisoner of War in the Word War 1. We still have a postcard he sent home, complete with the blanking out of anything the Germans didn’t want his family to read. I feel really proud of them all. In fact, I feel proud of everyone who has served in the wars or back at home during wars and I feel proud of those who are still serving in wars. Brave people.

Musings…ramblings…whatever you want to call them. May 20, 2008

I’ve just been looking out of the window.

It dawned on me when I was watching a tree blowing in the wind how beautiful the world actually is. I don’t always feel like that or even think about it. But it’s amazing.

 I love the way the sun breaks through the clouds, how it always shines through radiantly, like the perfect constant to today’s fast changing world. I love the birds singing, like it’s nature’s very own song, they seem so happy and content. I love how the trees dance in the wind, how the colour of their leaves contrasts so sharply and beautifully to the clear blue of the sky or how they reach up tall to the clouds.

Our lives, our possessions, our concrete messes…they all come and go. Nature…unpredictable, you can’t tame it…yet it’s the only thing that’s always constant. And is more beautiful than anything we can make. It will always be there. However much we abuse it, take it for granted, ignore it, it will always be there, standing strong and unmoved by our materialistic lives. It’ll always stand strong under us, over us and around us. Words can’t describe how wonderful nature is. It completely parallels with God. Well He did create it after all. But He’s always there standing strong. Awesome.

Maybe we’re living in our very own Narnia….but we’re all to bothered with convenience and material desires to stop and look at how beautiful and giving our world is, beneath the empty concrete shells we build on top of it and around it.

I feel truly inspired I want to go write a story….or draw a picture or write a poem.

No longer a Fresher May 19, 2008

Hardy har. I have finished my Fresher year now. The FP is still a Fresher till September. Ha. Ha. The exam…oh dear. The Biology stuff = easy. The Cognitive stuff…half of it I’d never seen in all of my life so there was a lot of guessing going on. There was less tension in the exam place today seeing as it was our last exam.

This year at Uni has been interesting. I’ve grown as a person so much. I’m not as angry as I used to be, I’m quite mellow. I’m more confident…I have a higher self esteem nowadays and I’ve done things I never would have thought possible a year back. Some things people take for granted, like walking to town on their own. I never used to be able to do that. I couldn’t walk anywhere and now I can (well I could in a physical sense, just psychologically I couldn’t). I feel quite proud. Meeting and talking to new different people I couldn’t do either but now I can, with some ease. I’m still quite shy and that, I’ve not become some over confident person who loves themselves, but that’s just part of my personality. The main thing is, my social phobia no longer rules me, I rule it. It still tries to get me occasionally, but I’ve learnt how to ignore it now. Of course I have some regrets from this year and I’m not exactly where I would’ve liked to be, but I’m actually very happy. I feel accomplished. Next year will throw up even more challenges, but instead of being scared of them, I’m quite looking forward to them, to see how far I can go. I do still get sad and stuff sometimes, but not like how I did. The mood swings I get nowadays are far more “normal” in that I’m not how I was (haha how cryptic), they’re just normal feelings of being a bit down. Like everyone gets some days. I want to go on rambling even more….but I won’t bore people. I’ll end this paragraph by simply stating the change in me is testimony to God. I don’t think I could’ve done it without Him.

On a more light-hearted note….I’ve ordered a QI DVD (the B series) because I LOVE QI. It’s amazing. Stephen Fry is awesome and Alan Davies well makes me laugh. You could say I find it Quite Interesting I can’t wait til it gets here. I’ve also just ordered a Jon Schmidt CD. He’s a piano player. He’s amazing, I love his songs.

Another blog with no official Narnia  mention. Don’t worry, I’ve not gone off it at all, I just don’t feel inclined to write about it today.

Yesterday, someone used a google translator thing to view my blog in French. I also viewed my blog in French despite the fact I know no French. It really amused me.

I have a pingback in my spam queue. I don’t know what a pingback is. I’m bored already.

Procrastination May 10, 2008

I’m bored. And revising is bad. I don’t even know what’s going on in my next exam, the whole Psychology group = confused.

I’ve decided…..I am no longer over loaded with Narnia, I think it was just because I was stressed and tired. Now I’m fully happy with it. There’s soooooooooooooooooo many new clips of the Prince Caspian film. They’ve made Caspian and Peter not like each other though…that’s not how it was in the book. And the whole Caspian and Susan thing, apparently they’ve cut out loads of the flirting. Why put it in the first place?! She’s 1300 years his senior and he’ll never see her again. Damn their Hollywoodising ways. My Narnia obsession is as follows:

I love my huge poster. The FP got it me for my birthday. It hangs above my computer in a large frame.  I do have all the Chronicles separately (as in in separate books)…but I couldn’t be bothered to get them out, so the big combined version will do for the purpose of the photo. Procrastinating much?

I was reading through my leaving book today. Haha what a load of old tosh. It made me quite mad. There was a lot of writing about how people would never forget being friends and keeping in touch etc etc. People have forgotten. A couple of people in particular. I don’t know how people can move on so easily and forget their friends until it suits them otherwise? I feel very cross. Maybe I just hold onto and value friendships too much? It takes me ages to trust people and to have them throw that away is baaaaaad. But I’ve been talking to Joy and she has amused me. Therefore, I am not mad anymore. And also, my Derren Brown book came. And it’s rather awesome.

Yesterday I was researching my family tree. Why? Well, I was watching TV when I was supposed to be revising and this little Channel 4 thing came on about some Hanging Tree…so I looked it up ‘cos it looked interesting, and it said about the Celts. So I was researching the Celts and I wondered if I come at all from Celtic origin, so I started researching….then I stumbled upon a mystery I already knew of but wasn’t really bothered. But it bothered me yesterday, I was curious, and the more curious I got the more I wanted answers. My Grandad’s parents both died when he was very young and so I can’t trace my family back past him. However, my dear old Nan (now deceased) had already tried, leaving a note in a book, with the names of who I believe to be his parents. So I’ve got that far. After exams I might pop down to the registry place and have a look at birth and death certificates if possible.

I also asked a lovely lady called Gill if she knew. Now the thing with Gill, is she is my Dad’s ex-wife. I was forbidden (and still am) from getting in touch with her in no uncertain terms (this was last year)….but I did anyway. And I’m glad. She’s really lovely and not like my parents depicted her to be. However she held no other information for me, but asked if I found anything out I let her know. So I have.

It’s really muggy today. I don’t like it. I guess I’d better get back to revision now I’ve finished ranting and typing a lot of old rubbish. Woopdeedoo.

Regrets. April 26, 2008

• Not doing all 3 A Levels
• As a consequence not getting into a more prestigious University
• Not leaving Coventry
• Choosing Priory Hall as a place to live
• Not staying with the Choir at Coundon
• Not nagging enough for piano lessons
• Not trying a bit harder with everything