foxed

So I haven't written a post in, oh, a decade. I shall give you an excuse explanation. Well, you see, it's been Christmas, and as you know from previous posts I've been more than a tad excitable of late, and I have allowed preparations for the festive season to pretty much commandeer my life for the past few weeks.

Also, I've started a new notebook (journal, of sorts) after finishing my latest one a few weeks ago. It is, needless to say, a thing of utter and complete beauty and I'm pretty attached. It always takes a little while to get used to a new notebook and to get over initial excitement about binding, paper quality, and to decide whether a .5 or .7 nib would be best, etc. (yes, I know...). 

However! the preliminary zeal has somewhat subsided so I've now begun to think of my poor neglected blog once again.

Well, that was until I discovered this. Or, rather, my excellent mum bought me a year's subscription to it as a Christmas present. It is difficult - nay, impossible - to convey the sheer beauty and perfection of 'the real reader's quarterly'. Suffice it to say, it came tied in a green ribbon and asked me to put aside 'the challenge of the e-book and other similar worries' in the note from the editors. Need I go on?

I spent much of this afternoon curled up in front of the fire, gliding my way through my first issue (no. 28) and dreaming of working for such a gorgeous company. If you're remotely interested in reading, I beseech you - try it.

So, in short, all these things have led to the neglect of ol' goshkate.blogspot. So, in the next few days and weeks I shall address this injustice (as well as the hideously lingering guilt of the inexcusable abandonment of the goshkate presence on YouTube), and cast aside my new glittering literary appendages in favour of the old dependable blog.

Huzzah for that!

English

Ok, so Facebook has - once again - changed its layout. Or, rather, the layout of our profiles. Now, I think Facebook is great (despite the somewhat sinister The Social Network...) and I've been a relatively avid user since I was persuaded to join when I was 17 (ish).

I do actually quite like the new profile layout, although I don't like the fact that the "education and work" section comes before the "about me" section (it smacks a little of LinkedIn and smug middle class-ness. But anyway...), but I do like the little row of pictures and details under our names (because, in my smug middle class-ness, I rather like having my university course and languages that I speak under there...).

But it was when I was filling in my "languages" section that I came across that ubiquitous linguistic loophole: "English English." That's right. I was able to choose between speaking "American English" or "English English." Is this really what it's come to?!

Now, I do concede that there are some inevitable (if incorrect... *gasp* that's right, I said it) differences in the spellings of perfectly commonplace words such as "colour" and "recognise" that Americans seem to have adopted, but surely - surely - we're still speaking the same language?!

Granted, at times, the Americans may seem mumbling and lolling in their speech, but surely we can sweep those differences aside and say, definitively, that "Yes, brothers, we are united in our speech of one common and glorious language."

Either that, or I'll just refuse to put "English English" under my name on my profile.

Disclaimer: You Americans are lovely really. I love your trilling, honeyed voices.

giddy

So, that festive spirit I was talking about? Well, it's well and truly hit. Seriously, thinking about Christmas-related joys has had me scrunching my toes with glee for days.

So, we decorated our (somewhat bijoux) Christmas tree the other day - in a much similar vein to last year, but with the promise of additions - and we've got a house Secret Santa on the go. Tonight is the English Department Christmas Party, and one of my tutors said she'd be bringing mince pies to our seminar next week (softening the potential blow of getting our marked essays back...). I am literally so excited!

I had my first mince pie of the year on Sunday night at my church's first carol service of the season - there was a brass quintet! I have truly regressed back to the mentality of a child; all thought of social etiquette went hurtling out of the window at the sound of "Hark The Herald" and I whooped and clapped at their instrumental encores as we were munching mince pies. And there's more.

The snow. Oh, the snow.

We've had pretty much continual snow for over a week - I'm talking icicles over a metre long, snow drifts up to my thighs, -17 degrees C, the whole caboodle. It's bloomin mint! Even in my little studenty house where I can see my breath in my bedroom, I'm loving the snow. And that in turn has made me fall in love with the North East even more. When the snow hits London, virtually everything stops. When the snow hits the North East, they send men out with shovels in front of the buses to keep them running. Well, almost.

I just love the hardiness of the North Easterners - and I think it's catching. I find myself going out without a coat, going barefoot in the snow to take the bins out, and climbing over next door's wall to get out of my house because my gate is blocked with snow. There's a spirit of "let's just get on with it", and man it's refreshing.

So, here I am in our little winter wonderland - with numb toes but aching for Christmas.

wedding

First of all - a pair of police officers just rode by my window on horseback. How weird! I love that, policemen on horses - such a quaint gesture to a bygone age. Maybe that's all we'll be seeing, what with the new budget cuts: policemen having to give up their comfy Vauxhall Astras and strapping on their saddles instead, shrieking "yee ha" as they gallop down the streets after the local teenage scallies. I quite like that image.

Secondly, congrats to William and Kate! About time too. I watched the post-announcement interview when I heard, and it made for an interesting watch. They seem happy enough so I'm pleased for them, but I do feel sorry for that poor girl. All the Diana-related questioning will be endless, what with the ring and all.

The interviewer himself hardly held back, saying stuff like: "Obviously Lady Diana was a real icon and an inspirational figure; does that intimidate you at all? Is that something you think about?" What on earth is the poor lass supposed to say to that?! "Erm, no, actually, I never think about my future husband's dead mother, and I'm a heartless bint." Or, alternatively, "Yes, I think about it all the time. In fact, I cower and tremble at her very name and fear I'll never be the style icon and philanthropist that everyone persists in reminding me that she was."

Good grief. So the little thing was left floundering around knee-deep in "erm"s and "obviously"s, until looking helplessly at her chap before he, jedi-like, raised a hand and said: "There's no pressure there."

Still, everyone loves a royal wedding, eh? And it didn't go unnoticed that this wedding has been announced right in the midst of the recession, remarkably similarly to Charles and Diana's in the last big economic crisis. What with that and the Olympics in two successive years and the inevitable tourist inundation which will ensue, ol' Wills might drag us out of the drudge of the credit crunch yet. Bravo to that!

chilled

First frost this morning! Had me slipping and sliding all the way to the Metro station... Felt incontrovertibly twee in my tweed coat with a little thermos in my leather satchel, but hey, I'm a third year.

I'm getting so genuinely excited about Christmas now - Fenwicks has unveiled its Christmas window display (an annual festive event) and Starbucks have started playing their Christmas mix. Now, I did have a moment - lasting all of about five minutes - during which I bemoaned the commercialisation of Christmas and how outrageous it is that the Halloween sweets were, for a surreal week or so, displayed alongside the Advent calendars. But, needless to say, it didn't last. I'm as giddy as a kipper wearing a Rudolph nose, and am biding my time before I put Christmas music on my iPod (1st December is reasonable, isn't it?).

We leave uni for the Christmas holidays on 17th December so I reckon we'll put our decorations up on the 1st-ish. So exciting! My new housemates seem well up for the festivities, so I reckon we'll be increasing our supplies of Christmas decks and spreading the joy throughout more of the house.

Eee! It's actually making my heart beat faster.

protest

Well, here it is - this is footage I took during the day. Slightly over-theatrical perhaps, but it conveys the mood.

 Regardless of how the media reported the day, I think this is a fair representation of the experience of 95% of the people that were there. A tiny minority of the 50,000 people that were there caused trouble - the rest of us had an incredible time.

Yes we were loud. Yes we shouted. Yes there were thousands of us. Yes we were passionate. Man, so glad that I went!

tomorrow

Firstly, I love this:

Secondly, man I'm excited!

Basically, tomorrow I'm off to London at 4:00 in the morning to attend this protest. I. Am. So. Excited.

Coming to uni, I was expecting there to be loads of protests - students up in arms at the injustices of the world, in an idealistically Les Miserables kind of way. It was something I was really looking forward to: joining the ranks of thousands of other students in an attempt to shake things up.

Yet, amidst the sea of seemingly apathetic rahs and disillusioned socialists there seemed to be a distinct lack of passion about, well, anything really. But now, in my last year at uni, I have my opportunity! In a final hurrah for my university experience, I'm going to join thousands of other students in an attempt to defend the right for my little brother to have the same opportunities I did.

For those unacquainted with the changes to be made to higher education funding in England, here's a (very) brief summary:

• Our government has taken the cap off university tuition fees - basically meaning universities can now charge anything up to £9000 a year for the benefit of attending their institution. A levy (tax) will be put in place for fees of over £6000 (last I heard), but to be honest I don't think that'll put the higher-end unis off.
• Funding for those courses which the government deems not "essential" (mainly humanities courses, like mine, such as English, History, languages that are not "strategically economically advantageous", Geography - all that kind of thing) will be cut the most severely - with government money being focused more on courses such as medicine and engineering.

Basically, the whole thing is a sham. It's outrageous. Now, I do know that compared with places like the States we still pay relatively little for university, but to suggest that students in a couple of years' time (my little brother included) will have to leave university with debts of up to £30, 000 (when our parents could attend for nothing) is scandalous.

Rant over.

So, that is why I'm off to London with a few of my coursemates and hundreds of other Newcastle students (and thousands of others from across the country) to march in front of Parliament and through central London.

Will it make a difference? Probably not. But, man, I'm buzzing for it.

aghast

Just come out of a seminar and now have an hour before my next lecture, so thought I would slump into the nearest computer cluster to do some online offloading.

Turns out I am not the English Literature proficient that I previously hoped I might be, as the vast majority of that seminar went straight over my head. Dreadful. I sat there nodding banally and taking notes furiously as people with a far vaster intellect than I can ever hope to accumulate made inciteful, probing, and - to me at least - almost incomprehensibly intelligent points about a critical essay which may as well have been written in Swahili for all I understood it.

So I'm now sat here, squatting behind an LCD monitor glancing furtively about, fearful of being exposed for the cerebral fraud that I am.

Still, I've got a children's literature lecture up next - we're studying Five Children and It this week. Much more on my level, evidently.

X Factor

OK, I'm sat here with the housemates watching the inevitable X Factor, chocolate mug cake in hand, and decided I should give my current lowdown:

Groups

• One Direction - not fussed. Sweet lads but I think the boy band thing (as much as Simon says they're not a boy band...) is a tad passé.
• Belle Amie - pretty, nice styling, not singers. Sorry, they're just not.

Over 28s

• Mary - absolutely adore that woman. She's the kind of woman that I reckon if you were having a crisis you could go round to her house and she'd put on a brew and give you something warming to eat. But they need to give her a new genre to sing.
• Wagner - oh no. Please, no.

Boys

• Aiden - nice unusual voice, good singer, pretty beautiful. I think they're playing up the "intensity" thing too much; he's becoming almost a caricature, which is a shame. Pretty sure he's on the autistic spectrum.
• Paije - mint lad, lovely personality. Mint voice. Makes me feel like sunshine.
• Matt - love love love him. Amazing voice, lovely bloke. Bad song choice for him last night (the Leona Lewis one). Kind of hoping he wins.

Girls

• Katie - beautiful, cool style, but she is not that bloomin' original. She's styled herself somewhere between Madonna and Lady Gaga, but people keep harking on about how original she is. I also get the feeling that singing is just a means to an end for her too, she wants to be an icon come what may, I think. Beautiful voice, but find her too annoying to really enjoy it. 
• TreyC - I find that spelling of her name quite annoying, but she's got a superb voice. It's a shame that she keeps being so overlooked. I think her personality hasn't come across that much on the show, and so much of it seems to based on that (perhaps unfairly).
• Rebecca - same as TreyC really. Fantastic voice, and she's very beautiful and sweet, but I don't feel as though we know her as much as the others.
• Cher - very quirky and distinctive voice. She's a fab singer, but I feel as though the judges don't really know what to do with her. Cheryl's so conventionally pop (and inferior in the way of talent) that I don't think she does her justice with song choice. Cher's kind of become a parody of herself. But, I think she's still mint. 

So there you have it, here endeth my judgement. As I speak Belle Amie are singing for survival against Katie. And, as much as she irritates me, I'm hoping Katie stays. It's only fair really.

briefly

I've got about 10 minutes before my next lecture, and I've darted into the nearest computer cluster to write a quick post about something I find exciting.

Autumn is here! Somewhere between my last post and now, the world has decided that summer is officially over. The temperature has dropped a good few degrees and the trees are shivering off the first layer of their leaves. As I'm walking home I regress to young childhood as I march determinedly, crunching all in my wake.

I've dug out my collection of scarves (which, at the moment, totals a disappointing 2) from the bottom of my pyjama drawer and the other night I had to sleep in a jumper, not for the last time this year I reckon.

So, we're battening down the hatches in our little student house, bracing ourselves for the frosty freezing weather that is soon to come and stocking up on thick socks and hot chocolate.

I love this time of year :)

Wednesdays

(I was listening to this at the time)

Oh happy day!

For those of you who don't know, at uni (in the UK at least) no one has lectures or seminars on Wednesday afternoons because it's set aside for the sports teams to be able to practise or play matches.

Now, I have a lecture at 10:00 on Wednesday mornings, which incidentally is just in time to walk through the crowds of sports teams as they congregate outside the Union waiting to go to their practices and stuff. This is indeed a highlight of my day.

I go all high school and giggly and feel overwhelmed by all the 6-foot-plus lads milling about in their team tracksuits.

Now, ordinarily I don't go for the "jock" type, but all those self-confident lads milling about and preening themselves in their apparent overt masculinity is evidently too much for my primitive little mind. I've even caught myself looking at the initials on their trackies and putting them into some puerile hierarchy - these are the shameful not-so-subconscious judgements that go through my mind:

• rugby/hockey/rowing - yum.
• football - not too bad.
• lacrosse/volleyball - pshh.

Good grief. I'm so basic.

grinning

I just had a seminar ("Atlantic Renaissance" if you really want to know), and I got told that a point I made was "excellent" - eeee! It got me grinning and preening like a primary school kid - happy days.

Gold star

mystery

There's a house at the end of my street that's always been a bit of a mystery to me.

Now, my area admittedly isn't the most upmarket neighbourhood, but there's a particular house that catches my attention every time I walk past. Its window frames are old and wooden, painted black and slightly rotting away. The curtains (yellowing and moth-eaten)  are always drawn, and there's bubble wrap lining all the windows. Strange.

Well, stranger still is if you look up to the upstairs window the bubble wrap stops about halfway up the window, and through the gap you can see a huge rhododendron bush growing inside the house. Seriously. It's there growing in the upstairs bedroom with huge purple flowers.

Now, I've never seen anyone go in or out of that house, nor any evidence that anyone even lives there at all, but someone must go in there to water the plant.

Whenever I walk past I'm always hopeful that I'll see something. A face peering out of the upstairs window, a light on inside, or even a twitch of the curtains. So far, nothing.

For now, at least, it remains a mystery. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

moments

I still love it.

books

I took a trip to Blackwells today to buy another couple of books for my modules this semester (yeah, I know it's more expensive that way, but I'm one of those people who likes to - you know - have the smell of a bookshop in my nose as I browse). The first was this little delight:

Not exactly a saucy riot, but actually surprisingly interesting. Now, I know you're not supposed to judge a book etc., but this isn't exactly a cover to set your heart pounding. But I must admit that I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would - it's got some interesting (and some barmy) ideas.

The second (for my children's lit module) was much more appealing:

Now, any book with a Quentin Blake on the cover is enough for me, but more than that I love its shape. Tricky to tell from the picture, but it's actually shorter (height-wise) than a standard-sized book. It's stocky and cuddly enough to make losers like me salivate on sight. It set my fingers a-trembling, let me tell you.

Puffin Classics have obviously done a bit of a revamp, and I would love to have been there when they decided what to change. How do they come up with these things? I imagine the meeting: "Hey, guys, I've got an idea - why don't we just make them shorter?" Genius. 

Anyway, enough of that geekishness.

secret obsession

So, I just got back from my first lecture of the year (and, incidentally, my only lecture of the day...) and I'm now parked comfortably in my living room, contemplatively polishing my shoes.

I love polishing shoes. Have I ever mentioned that? It's actually become a strange compulsion. Well, the thing is, I bought some new winter shoes with some birthday money that I got particularly for the purpose. They are, if I do say so myself, completely gorgeous, and it's been bothering me that I can't find my shoe polish from last year.

So, this afternoon I decided to kill two birds with one stone (that's such an awful expression) and took a trip to Morrisons to buy some new shoe polish, and also to pick up my brolly from the lost property. I'd stupidly left it hooked onto my shopping trolley last week after being distracted by battling with the Newcastle wind and attempting to cling to any remaining scrap of dignity as my skirt flew up with gay abandon.

After heaving myself back through Byker I was bloomin' boiling (it appears that 3 layers and a scarf was slight overkill for early October) so settled down for a good ol' polish.

In other news - I WENT RUNNING THIS MORNING! Yes, you heard me right. I am in fact training for the Great North Run (aw man, see, now I've said it on here it makes it official). I've signed up on this website and it has sorted out a training schedule for me. For those of you who remember the list a wee while ago you'll know that jogging was one of my aims for this year. I did go a few times earlier this year but now I've got a training buddy, and an actual aim. So here goes!

I'll let you know how I get on...

happy drizzly days

Well, I'm back at uni. And, as expected, I now can't imagine ever having been away. I've had all manner of introductory talks today, designed to "induct" us back into uni life, and to impress on us the great importance of working hard.

Honestly though, this year is my last at uni - and this is the one when I really really will be organised. I will start (or, at least, start planning) essays as soon as they are set, I will become attached to my diary (which, to be fair, I did most of last year and as of becoming a member of Committee for CU it became somewhat of a necessity).

I love the beginnings of new academic years. When I think back to all the starts of new years I've had - all the pencil cases bought, all the pencils sharpened and diaries purchased and then abandoned, all the new umbrellas and ill-advised winter hats - it's really incredible to think that this is the last time (at least for the time being) that I'll be doing it all.

For the last 15 years of my life, September has come around, my birthday's been celebrated, then I've gone back to school, then uni, and this is the last time!

Surrounded by all the new freshers, grinning and brandishing flyers and maps and freshers wristbands, while I trundle from one building to another sorting out module changes and handing in dissertation ideas, I can't help but feel... Well, old.

Last year I had a sense of at-home-ness, as though I knew the score and could join in with everything without the pressure of having to put myself out there and hope against hope that I would find someone who wouldn't mind hanging out with me and would find my idiosyncrases endearing.

This year I kind of feel more like I'm facilitating other people's start-of-year. And this has it's own set of charms: I can scan the crowds of people and see the familiar nervous furtive glances, and recognise the relief they feel when you go and chat and ask the familiar Big 3 ("where are you from?", "what are you studying?", "which Halls are you in?") - a breath of comforting air during probably the scariest and most exciting start-of-year that people will ever experience.

As a uni veteran I'm able to breeze around feeling confident and at home, and can enjoy being a chilled-out fish in a pretty big pond, before next year when I'll be the nervous newcomer again - trying to swim alongside even bigger fish.

angst

Well, I am in the foulest mood conceivable, and I'm not sure why really. 21 year-old blues? Who knows. I've got Fawlty Towers on in the background and even that isn't coaxing me out of my thunderous stupor.
Here are probable reasons for my ongoing outrage:

1. I inadvertently upset my mum this evening (a misunderstanding and has been rectified), and I hate upsetting my parents so that's left me feeling all cross with myself.
2. I suspect that I've had more than a few hormones blasting through my body for the past couple of days and they've finally reared their heads to bite me on the bum.
3. I'm going back to uni on Sunday - which I love and am really looking forward to - but leaving home is always a bit of a wrench, no matter how many times I do it.
4. There are still some things outstanding to be organised for Freshers' Week and they're weighing on my mind.

It's a pretty feeble list really now I look at it. Yet still the mood rages on. I'll wait until I'm in a better mood before I blog again - even I can't bear this whinging. Here is my advice to myself:

1. Sorry Mum.
2. Get a grip.
3. Bite the bullet.
4. So get on with it!

I think I need an early night.

sarnie of your dreams

I literally cannot get enough of this.

It's making me salivate just looking at that picture. I've just had two sarnies using that bread, and I am seriously considering a third. Ach, no, I can't. I apologise profusely that I have nothing interesting to say - this bread has single-handedly removed any sensible thought from my head.

More from me once I've hidden the bread bin.

20 frivolous memories

So, most of this morning has been spent - productively, naturally - watching Trinny and Susannah Undress the Nation. For the uninitiated, this programme's basic premise is snatching women with shattered self-esteem off the street, locking them in a fluorescent, mirrored cube of horror, crushing their spirits and reducing them to tears, before whizzing them off on a dazzling shopping trip and single-handedly restoring their confidence and repairing their marriages. Excellent stuff.

Aside from that, it's my birthday coming up and, predictably, it's got me feeling all cheesy and retrospective. I'll be 21 in two days, an adult in the eyes of all the oldies, officially able to drink in America and, well, I'm a good couple of years away from my teenage era. So, in typical blogger fashion, here are a few of the things I've done in the last year:

1. I entered the real, adult world of online banking.  Not only that, but I started paying bills. Real bills. And when I call my electricity suppliers, they don't ask if my mum's at home.
2. I voted in the general election. I woke up after hours of trying to stay up to watch the whole thing unfold, to a text from Lou saying: "You are waking up to a Tory government." Then, a few minutes later: "Ok, forget that. I read it wrong."
3. I opened a Twitter account. And a Flickr. And a Dailybooth. And I shamefully neglect all but one.
4. I cut my hair short, dyed it black (because there wasn't any brown dye in the shop), ignoring all sensible advice to the contrary. And I've stuck with it.
5. I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and in so doing discovered my fictional home-from-home.
6. I received a brand new laptop. Which eventually broke. Which I was then conned out of 17o quid to get fixed (which it wasn't). But it was through this circuitous route that I became acquainted with the unadulterated technological love affair of my life (my MacBook), and shouted at the crook in the repair shop with all manner of spectacular righteous anger and dissatisfaction.
7. I managed to gradually acquire 100 YouTube subscribers - one of whom managed to find me on Facebook and left me such a sweet "I'm a fan from YouTube" comment on my wall (which sufficiently impressed my housemates and made me go all giggly).
8. I was about 2 feet away from the Queen for about 30 seconds, which was enough to make me burst into tears.
9. On 15th September 2009, I was genuinely in love. The relationship ended in the months that followed, and it's taken much of the rest of this year to reach the point where I don't operate under a constant state of pain. But now I can say I'm glad it ended - because on 15th September 2010 I will have re-learned to be comfortable on my own, and hopefully won't make the same mistakes again.
10. I pierced my ear, again.
11. I seriously considered getting a tattoo, and still think I might. Perhaps it'll be something I do when I'm 21 - a delicious age when I really should know better.
12. I started the year in the black, then slipped into the red, then crawled back into the black.
13. I went into Boots looking for a pair of glasses, telling the lady: "Basically, I want to look like Jim Royle from The Royle Family", which she found highly amusing.
14. I went into the local brand new Hollister shop. Twice. Yet despite scoffing and sniggering my way through the entire experience, there was a little bit of me that was disappointed that the topless male models weren't there.
15. I mastered the art of a truly beautiful red velvet cake. Then planned my future wedding around it.
16. I went from being a Hallgroup Leader, to a Committee Member, and wondered how it all happened so fast.
17. I bought a ukulele, and am 2 songs through the 5 that I swore I'd learn.
18. I bought more bunches of flowers, cinema tickets, and packets of fizzy Haribo than I'd care to remember.
19. I sold out and gave in to the pull of the iPod, which I guess after my ongoing romance with the MacBook was fairly inevitable really.
20. I started thinking seriously about what I'll be doing this time next year after realising that - as much as I'd like to - I can't stay in uni forever. But I also realised that maybe it'll all be ok, and the big scary world isn't too scary after all.

It's been a full, dazzling, heartbreaking, thrilling, hilarious and magnificent year. I hope I've done it justice.

recap

Oh hello blog, you lovely thing. It's been a while.

Well, now that I'm back home after almost 3 weeks without internet I thought I'd tell you just what I've been doing in the mean time. It has been a good 3 weeks!

Ok, first week I was on a barge on the Oxfordshire canal, which was bea-utiful. We became expert storm-dodgers and, if I do say so myself, I was soon steering the boat like a pro, even in the pouring rain:

An amusing incident on the barge: I was steering fairly early in the morning and looking like a real bargee, when I looked to my feet and saw the hatch down to the engine, and noticed a small brass sign next to it explaining what it was. Now, for my somewhat immature mind, this sign turned out to be more than I could bear to keep to myself. I called to my brother at the front of the barge: "Oi Tom, there's a funny sign on the barge!" He asked me what it said, and I bellowed out over the noise of the engine: "It says FUEL COCK BELOW!" Then fell about in helpless hysterics. It wasn't until cruel coincidence caused me to turn round that I saw the old bloke on the tow path that was out walking his dog, looking at me in surprised amusement and pity as I rolled about the deck cackling like a schoolgirl. I was so embarrassed that, naturally, I went and hid in the toilet for the next half hour.

So, the week after the barge we went to stay in a cottage in Dorset (in Lulworth Cove, if you're interested). The weather was much better that week, and we went on plenty of day trips to explore everything around. One of the highlights of the week was when we went sea kayaking - it was incredible! I would so recommend it if you haven't done it before. Tom and I shared a kayak, and we were crashing through waves and dodging in and out of rocks and caves - whistling the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, naturally.

Another highlight was our trip to Lulworth Castle for the annual jousting festival - where I learned that not only do I need a boyfriend, but he must be of the armour-wearing "I-shall-win-this-tournament-for-your-honour" type.

Needless to say, the baddie knight ("Lord Odious", as it happened) was my favourite, and - I am ashamed to say - without any other appropriate favour to give him (women used to give knights handkerchiefs and things to show their favour during the jousts) I was seriously considering removing my bra to give him in a moment of madness, but it seems a young girl beat me to the underwear offering:

She was on her dad's shoulders next to us and told him she wanted to give him her spare pair of knickers. On ascertaining that it was in fact the baddie that she wanted to favour, he said amusingly: "I'm not sure if I approve of this!" 

The final highlight, was the Anniversary of the Battle of Britain Air Show in Duxford. Man, I have never seen anything like it. So many World War II planes - they had sixteen Spitfires flying together! And I'm no fighter plane expert but I'm told that's rather a big deal. Of course, the Red Arrows are always a big hit with me.

So, this brings us on to this week, where I have been at Forum 2010, organised by UCCF (the national organisation of Christian Unions in universities). It was one of the most incredible weeks ever, honestly. The teaching was fantastic (click here to listen to any of them - Graham Daniels' talk was particularly brilliant) and we all learned to much and got really fired up for going back to uni and organising our CU freshers events. I nearly lost my voice from all the singing we did! Picture it: pitch black outside - no clouds but loads of stars, a huge marquee and a thousand students belting it out so that you can hardly hear your own voice. So good. So so good!

So, here I am - complete with a host of new books from Forum, a miniature model of a Red Arrow plane, and flip flop tan lines. It's been a mint few weeks!

new love

So today, after much excitement and anticipation, my iPod nano arrived. My first iPod - after swearing I would never get one because everyone had one - I am in love. 

I have loved and adored my Sony Bean for 5 whole years, and I adore it still. Battery life is incredible, charging time is second to none, and it was quirky enough to be satisfactorily different. Beautiful. I bought it with my first ever wages when I was 16. Aww, nostalgia.

However, since Apple have hooked me in with the technological love of my life (MacBook), my conversion to  iPods was fairly inevitable. And, oh, it's a sweet thing. So, as much as I'll miss the Bean (although, inevitably I'm keeping it so I can show the grandkids - "look children, hop off your hovercrafts for a moment and behold my first ever mp3 player. Mp3? You know, it's how we listened to music before LaserPods"), I am now very very in love. 

Plugging it into my laptop became the perfect marriage of dazzling technology and it was a sight to behold. Yum.

Marilyn

Listen to this as you read, it'll convey the mood.

So, this is what I was listening to as I was walking down the street today. Or, rather, what I was listening to as I did my best Tyra-esque hips-swinging foot-stomping model walk down the road. It was, may I say, sublime.

Or that's what I thought. It happened to be quite a windy day today and I was wearing a dress, which meant that I had more than a slight Marilyn Monroe situation going on and had to keep hold of it to maintain any scrap of dignity. Given my generally jubilant mood I was grinning away and sashaying my way down the street without a care in the world - I giggled coquettishly as I struggled to keep my dress in place and my hair was windswept and sexy.

Or that's what I thought. I happened to catch a look at myself in an office window as I swept by. What looked - in my head - like a fresh young thing flirting with life, looking chic and waltzing her way to work, actually resembled some deranged and bedraggled dowager clutching at her petticoats and chortling madly at some imagined lover and leering wildly at passing traffic.

Of course, then I imagined how I'd blog about this tonight, so then I got the giggles even more and ended up literally cackling my way down the street to the utter bewilderment of the surrounding businessmen. Women with children were actually backing away from me.

Other than that, nothing much else to report. Bon Jovi tomorrow morning I think.

pinstripes

So, for the last almost-5 weeks I've been working in an office in the business district of the city (in a very beautiful building, if I do say so myself), and I've come to a somewhat surprising realisation. I like the whole "business person" thing. Weird, eh.

Like, walking from my bus stop to the building with all the other suits in the city (not that I've been wearing anything particularly close to a business suit - hey, I'm an English student, I'm doing my best). Dunno, I just like it. I have to walk through this tunnel under a railway overpass (it's nicknamed the "Dark Arches") to get to the building, and there's just something quite nice about walking in a big line with other people - feeling kind of... Important.

And the bizarre thing is that it's not something I've ever imagined myself doing. The image of my future life in my head involves graduating uni, stumbling into some delightfully creative and bohemian job - probably through sheer chance - then meeting a nice chap who finds me charming and my love of old tobacco tins and teacups endearing, he'll propose to me in a creative way using an unusual and interesting engagement ring, we'll have a wedding with a red velvet cake then live together in a house with mismatching crockery and shelves and shelves of space for our books and films. We'll scrape together enough money to live on and we'll have flowers in milk bottles on our mantlepiece. And that's my plan so far really.

So this is why I was surprised to find that I liked feeling all businessy. It's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, but just for this short while it's felt good to feel that I can do something. All the worries about the recession, and lack of graduate jobs, and student debt, and my non-vocational degree, have made me worry a little that maybe it doesn't happen that way. Maybe I won't just fall into something I can imagine doing for the rest of my life. Maybe I won't meet a bloke who loves Withnail and I as much as me. Maybe we really will have to scrape enough money together to live on, and perhaps there won't be as many books and films as I imagine. Maybe.

This sounds miserable, but really it's been reassuring these past few weeks. It's made me think, yeah, even if it doesn't go exactly as planned, even if all these things don't fall into place, even if we have to build our bookshelves one year at a time, maybe it'll be ok. Because here I am, working in the last job in the world I could ever have imagined myself doing (hopeless with numbers as I am), and I've enjoyed it.

It's made me feel hopeful. As though as much as I think I know my plans, and as much as I imagine it all out in my head, maybe things won't work out as I thought. They might even be better.

al fresco pet pedicures

Good grief, 3 posts in the last two days - the lass must be serious. Yes indeed, dear readers, I am sallying forth as I mean to go on. After my shockingly disparate blog presence I consider it a matter of duty and pride to up the ante on the ol' literary input. It always takes a little while to get back into blog-mode after being away, but I genuinely love it and want to get back in the habit.

Ok, so today started with my usual awakening - not from the infamous Mickey Mouse - but from my pet cat, Daisy. Every morning she considers it her duty to sandpaper-lick my face/fingers/elbow with her oh-so-cute-but-not-at-4:30-in-the-morning tongue, and maows pathetically (not a misspelling - that is exactly the disgruntled noise that she makes. Every morning...). I then heave myself out of bed, and semi-consciously stumble downstairs to let her out.

A few hours later I got up feeling slightly more human (slightly) and went to the kitchen for my restorative Weetabix. Today I was helping my Mum with the kids at church; one of our planned activities (and I'm now not sure how we came up with this idea) was to make chocolate bugs with the children - in a gesture towards cooking but without having to brave the hazardous e. coli-zone that is the kitchen at my church. My church, I should explain, is held in a local community centre, so we don't actually own the building. It's a nice set-up, but it does mean that we have to share the building with all the youth offender/ASBO kids/behavioural disorder groups that meet there during the week. All great stuff, but inevitably the kitchen has now begun to resemble what I imagine the scene a few minutes after the events at Chernobyl. You get a general feel for the building when you take a moment to more closely examine the posters and notices that adorn its walls - among them the bomb discovery protocol, a how-to-avoid-loan-sharks warning, and a text-this-number-if-you-know-someone-carrying-a-knife police appeal. Mhm, you get the idea.

So, basically, these chocolate bugs that we were preparing were made out of milk chocolate and white chocolate with a few good dollops of golden syrup to make them stick into a kind of chocolate dough. The picture in the Usborne children's recipe book looked pretty and simple enough, but turns out that what is essentially solid glucose turns children not into angelic darlings joyfully forming wings for their confectionary bugs using the helpful cocktail sticks provided for the purpose, but into minions of the apocalypse bent on wreaking havoc and destruction amidst much shrieking and chaos.

The afternoon was decidedly more relaxing, involving little more that sitting out in the sun in the garden and making my way through almost the entirety of hayleyghoover's blog. That's right kids, the girl is a legend. This blissful occupation was interrupted (it just took me about three attempts to spell interuppted interruppted interrupted. Shocking.) momentarily for a brief interlude where I had to help my Mum cut the cats' claws. Straightforward as this may sound, let me tell you - hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? No fury like a cat cajoled, more like.

Needless to say they didn't take kindly to being accosted in their casual promenade around the garden, and were even less impressed when they saw we were wielding a pair of nail clippers. Ye-es. Not impressed. I was the designated cat-restrainer for the proceedings, and I was cooing and chirping in all manner of soothing and encouraging ways, but to little avail. When we'd finished they flounced off disgustedly, appalled that we could ever subject them to such indignity.

Anyway, bedtime now - need to be up early to make my sarnies for work tomorrow. Off to take Mickey's battery out.

Mickey stupid Mouse

I think I'm becoming an obsessive. Honestly. I'm sat here quite innocently reading some of Blogger's most excellent material, and all I can hear is tick tick tick tick tick.

My clocks are driving me crazy.

OK, I just re-read over that and realised how utterly bizarre that sounded. Thing is, I have two clocks in my room - the clock on my wall (which is a loud clicker anyway), and the Mickey Mouse alarm clock circa 1993 that I now no longer use but don't have the heart to throw out. Basically, somehow between 1993 and now, the second hand of the alarm clock has bended slightly, which means that whenever it gets to the minute hand it has to work harder to push past it, so suddenly clicks really LOUDLY.

It gets itself all worked up into an irritating little crescendo once every minute, and it's driving me insane. Thing is, I know how stupid it is to get annoyed at something so pointless and - let's face it - not that intrusive, but I can't help it. Once I hear it click, I know it's there, and I can't think of anything else - not even the brilliance that is the aforementioned hayleyghoover. And that's annoying.

So I find myself gradually getting more and more annoyed at the stupid wretched mouse and his stupid clicking second hand that I end up taking a herculean leap from my bed over to the alarm clock, wrenching open it's little door and flinging the battery away.

Peace at last. That is until the morning, when I go over to the alarm clock looking so tragic and pillaged and lying on its side that I feel sorry for it and inevitably put its battery back in. I need to get a grip.

les laveurs de vitres

As I speak, I'm sat cowering in the corner of my bedroom with the blinds drawn as tight as they'll go lest the window cleaner cops an eyefull of me in my Primark pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt from Prague that says "Czech me out!". There aren't many things that make me jumpy in my own house, but the unmistakable and unsolicited rattle and clang of the dreaded ladders being propped up against my wall is sure to do it - it has me scuttling away from all sources of daylight like a startled earwig.

Seriously though, they hold our privacy in the palm of their hand. All our weird little when-no-one-else-is-in-the-house habits (mine's singing along - loudly, with actions  - to karaoke songs from YouTube...) and little quirks are laid out utterly bare for them to see.

You suddenly feel on show, like you have to look busy, interesting and attractive - quite habitually living out your trendy and exciting little life. You give your bedroom a quick once-over, make sure there is nothing incriminating or embarrassing lying about. No knickers that didn't quite make it to the laundry basket, or Twilight soundtracks piled next to your CD player (who, me?).

It's the fact that you don't know when they're coming! You could, quite innocently, be making a quick post-shower naked dash from the bathroom to your bedroom (you might even be stomping an America's Next Top Model-esque "signature walk"... Maybe...) when, suddenly, there's Dave on the ladders, sheepishly waving outside the window.

Anyway, a quick look out of my window has assured me that he has, in fact, gone. So, I can retreat back onto my bed - in full and proud view of the window. Until next time, when we'll go through the whole rigmarole again.

You know what I'm talking about, right? Maybe it's just me...

excuses excuses

OK, yes yes, I know. Utterly feeble blog-presence of late. OK fine, virtually nil presence. Yeah I know, trying to fob you off with little YouTube video summaries was a fail.

HOWEVER! I do have a fairly (fairly...) reasonable excuse. Drumroll please...

I have a job! Oh yes, that's right - job search was not completely fruitless after all! For the last 2-and-a-bit weeks I've been working at a chartered accountant's. Oh yes, it is exactly as grown up as it sounds.

Of course, truth is I know zilch about bloomin accounting, but thankfully they're all very friendly and sympathetic towards the numerically-illiterate and have given me nice wordy things to do. AND they're wanting to do pretty much a full corporate re-brand and hopefully I'm going to be involved in that. Which is, needless to say, excessively exciting :)

So, in short, everything's rather sunny at the moment. And as if things weren't going well enough, I'm off to see Eclipse tomorrow night (*cough*...). Perhaps won't be the visual feast that was Inception, but... well, you know.

Johnny Depp, Quid, and Crumpets

Third episode of Ask a British Girl - a selection of questions I've been asked recently by the lovely people of YouTube :)

SO EXCITED!

Eeeeeeeeeee! Emailed the lady in charge of subscriptions over at Uppercase and she gave me a link to a couple of websites that stock their magazines for people in the UK - woop woop!

That's made my little day :)

ach ach ach

Update on the job thing. No go. The place I was hoping I could work called me today saying that a guy that used to work for them has come back so they're taking him on instead. Blllleeeeeeeuuuuuugh. Back to the drawing board.

The Most Annoying Movie Moments

What, pray, is this? "A YouTube frenzy!" I hear you say. Well, yes. That's what comes from having summer holiday and currently no job.

(Emphasis on the hopefully-not-too-lengthy "currently"...)

hay fever

As aforementioned, summer is finally here! Weather is still beautiful and everywhere looks lovely. For some of us, however, it does come with minor drawbacks. So, here's my latest video - bemoaning hay fever and all its loathsome appendages...

why do we have a queen?

As you know from previous posts I'm a fan of our Queen, so here's the second instalment of Ask a British Girl :)

summer

is well and truly here - huzzah! The past week or so has been an endless stream of beautiful blue skies, and warm breezes. Yum.

Now, normally I'm a definite autumn-gal, but I think I've been thoroughly seduced by summer this year. After a good few months of drizzly grey this good weather is much appreciated. You don't realise what a huge difference the weather makes to your mood until it's gorgeous - it's mint! Wandering round in flip flops, flowy (is that a word?) skirts and cropped leggings does wonders for the ol' grin. 

We did a special summery teepee thing for the kids at church on Sunday and it went down a treat. Here is a record of our efforts :)

the Queen

So, I'm the only single in the house, and I have a bowl of berry yoghurt to keep that niggly I-know-I-have-Haribo-in-my-cupboard-but-will-feel-guilty-if-I-eat-them feeling at bay, so I thought I'd write something here.

Nothing too exciting has happened today - I've been revising for my exam on Saturday (yes, Saturday - the ultimate in exam cruelty...), and in the afternoon I watched the Queen's speech.

I adore that woman. She is eighty-four years old - an age when, frankly, most people settle down to some well-earned knitted socks and a footstool. But not the Queen. Oh no, she soldiers on like a stoic matriarch, untiring and unflinching.

Watching her speech today became a strange mingling of old and new. All the gilt and pomp and circumstance and strange traditions (like slamming the door of the House of Commons in the face of the poor chap known as the Black Rod) are there alongside all the film cameras and yobbish MPs. Seeing the Queen sitting on her huge gold throne wearing the Imperial State Crown and talking about carbon emissions and super-fast broadband made for an interesting picture I thought.

And I get fed up of people going on about how stupid and unnecessary the monarchy is. I think having the monarchy - and all associated ceremony - is a brilliant part of our heritage and history, and makes me feel so proud to be British. I love that no matter how fast politics and technology might progress we still have those centuries-old traditions woven into the background. It's one of the things that other countries admire us for. As a nation we know how to put on a good formal show (marching bands and the like), and they're often imitated by other countries - though without the same pizzazz, although I do say so myself.

People complain about how much money we pay in taxes to fund the monarchy, but it actually costs only 50p per person, per year. Now, to me, that seems a small price to pay. I have far more issue with the money our government seems to be spewing into developing nuclear weapons than the little we contribute towards huge events like today.

Literally, for less than the cost of a first class stamp we can have little slices of history delivered right to our doorsteps, in HD surround sound, and a dose of national pride to boot. Surely that's a bargain worth shouting about?

un autre

Did another vlog, this time about the new Robin Hood film. Two vlogs in three days? I'm just enjoying my new editing software too much :)
Also wanted to share this tasty picture:

This is my red velvet cake no. 2 in the making. I didn't have my cake tins here in Newcastle so I split the mixture between a couple of loaf tins - our red velvet loaves were demolished in about two days between four hungry housemates. A job well done :) 

seduced by a big, shiny, Apple

New vlog - finally! Woot woot. Me waxing lyrical about the glorious Apple shop in Newcastle. Have a look-sie if you have a minute.

in the milk bottle

on my desk. Something pretty to look at amidst essay-writing.

poor lad

To counter the hideous hideousness of seeing Gordon Brown walking his family out of 10 Downing Street, I made a cheesecake last night.

And it took the edge off.

British people.

We're hilarious. 

As a race, a rule seems to have emerged among us over time that means we're not allowed to talk on public transport. Even when you're not in the quiet carriage on the train, you find yourself giving foul glares to the bloke on his phone at the end of the carriage going on and on and on about what he's having for tea that night. Mate, we don't care that you're having peas with it. Honestly. 

It's the one time we're even close to being rude, in our thoroughly British way of course. Lot's of huffing and puffing and bustling around. 

But I do think the silence rule has gone a bit too far. It means that if you ever are sat next to anyone and you attempt to start conversation in a friendly and neighbourly way, the recipient looks at you as though you are: a) a stalker, or b) about to axe them. 

I mean, I was on the train yesterday on the way back to Newcastle and I was at a table seat with two other people (which is difficult enough, what with the under-the-table foot-placement politics and all...), but then the train jolted forwards and someone's lunch from the overhead locker came flying out and hurtled down on top of us. And even as I made a timid "ooh" as a bottle of Sprite came plummeting down and cracked me soundly on the head, not a word. The bloke next to me calmly retrieved the sandwich from his crotch and put it on the table. Not a single word.

Good grief.

I can't vote.

Well, that would be the case if I wasn't going home this evening.

Turns out that, even though I sent my form off on time, I'm not registered here in Newcastle as well as in Leeds. Ach! So, after a brief conversation with a severely brusque woman on the phone at Newcastle Council, it became apparent that there was "nothing we can do two days before the election" (i.e. "what do you expect me to do, you stupid, disorganised girl"). So, I've decided to go home today so I can vote tomorrow.

Why bother? Well because, cheesy as it sounds, women in the past went through a tad more than an inconvenient train journey in order to give me the privilege. So, off I shall go back to Leeds - which actually will be lovely because I can see my family - and off to the polling booth tomorrow to put a big fat cross in the box. And I shall relish the thought of women in 18th century outfits grinning as I take the pen in my hand.

the joy of enchiladas

Who knew?! How have I lived this long without trying them?!

Sure, I've had fajitas, but these are like fajitas and then some. They're like juiced-up fajitas drizzled in sunshine. I think they may become a regular in the goshkate household. Cannot fail to be a winner.

here comes the sun (please)

I am waiting for the summer, patiently. Despite being a self-confessed autumn-girl, I have to admit summer seems to be holding back a little this year.

I find myself looking wistfully out of the window, and holding my breath as I open the curtain every morning. Will there be blue skies? We've had some sunny days of late, and it's been gorgeous.

It's just one of those things - you don't realise what a difference the weather makes, until the sun is blazing and you're walking along with an inexplicable grin on your face.

It's in that in-between stage - too cool to wear flip flops, too warm to wear tights. That first brave day when I decide that it's time to bare my legs to the world is yet to come. I'll keep you posted.