Monthly Musings: November

And another month bites the dust.

Does anyone else feel like November was a bit of a 'meh' month? For one I can't remember the last time I saw so much as a streak of blue in the sky. Here in South Wales it has rained pretty much constantly since 4th November with brief intervals of gale force winds. I kid you not, I attempted to carry a large cardboard box from my storage lock-up to my car earlier today and I genuinely thought I was about to be swept off my feet like some kind of bedraggled, frizzy-haired Mary Poppins.

Here's me, hiding from the rain and praying for coffee

Maybe it was the murky weather or maybe it was the dull interlude between Halloween and Christmas, but my November was a bit grey all round. In fact, what even happened this month? Surely I must have been present for at least part of it!

Obsession of the month...

It's been a good while since I've had the time to sit down and binge-watch a TV show like I did back in my carefree uni days. But one day last month I was ill and suddenly found myself with an entire day to fill with nothing but lounging on the sofa under a duvet and catching up on my series links. It was glorious! You know, apart from the illness and whatnot.

Anyway, I finally got around to watching a show on Sky 1 called You, Me and the Apocalypse, which I quickly became totally obsessed with. 

It's about the oncoming end of the world (as you would imagine) and it follows various different characters from all over the place as they live out their final days. It's hilarious! The plot is totally off the wall and bizarre, but I am so hooked! There's just no way to guess what's going to happen next!

Now I just need to come down with the flu or something so I'll actually have the time to finish watching it... 

Accomplishment of the month...

I successfully applied winged eyeliner. Women everywhere will appreciate how huge this accomplishment is. 

Thing I am most ashamed of this month...

The shambles that was my Christmas shopping weekend. Don't get me wrong, it was a fabulous weekend. Roman Baths were visited, prosecco was guzzled, Big Rich Texas was binge-watched in the hotel room. But as far as actually making headway with my Christmas shopping goes...yeah, it was a total fail. I didn't buy a single gift. Unless you count gifts for myself...

Book of the month...

Do we really need to talk about it? Yes, I'm still reading *Middlemarch and yes I will still be reading it in 47 year's time.

Youtuber of the month...

Sarah Rae Vargas

This lady certainly does not need any additional promotion from little old me since she already has nearly 500,000 subscribers. And for good reason!

I've been subscribed to Sarah's channel for a while now and her videos are so different from anything else I've seen on Youtube. Her down to earth, no nonsense honesty is a breath of fresh air (and definitely leaning towards the risqué). She makes videos about body confidence, dealing with haters and sex alongside your standard hauls and outfit of the day videos. 

She also strikes me as the type of person who'd be great to go do tequila shots with.

Things ticked off the 2015 List...

Success! I actually accomplished something on the list this month!

26. Listen to classical music (in the vague hope that it will make me more cultured and stop my brain cells from fizzling out at such a high rate)

I had Radio 3 on in my car for an entire 4 days, which is a practically an eternity when you consider that I spend 4-6 hours of my work day driving. Listening to classical music definitely made me feel very cultured, but by day 5 I simply had to switch back to my beloved Radio 1. All the violins were starting to make me weirdly anxious. 

Next month I will aim to...

Soak up as much of the Christmas spirit as humanly possible...hopefully without inadvertently gaining 20lbs. Because, you know, Christmas chocolates...

Pssst! You can check out my favourite products of the month here:

(Affiliate links marked with *)

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24 Hours of Fancy

If three years in Exeter taught me anything about myself it's that I am not a fancy person. I drink Blossom Hill instead of Prosecco, I do not understand the obsession with Jack Wills, and I have never held a £50 note. (While we're on the topic, does anyone actually know who's on the £50 note? I've always been curious.)

But last week I got the opportunity to pretend to be super fancy for a full 24 hours. It was exhausting. 

As a birthday treat for my mother we went to the Celtic Manor Resort, a golf, spa and leisure hotel and resort in Newport. Everyone from the Prince of Wales to Elton John, Shirley Bassey and even Obama have stayed there. Clearly, if it's good enough for Barack then it's good enough for us. 

I drove (purely because my car would fit in fractionally better among the BMWs and Porches than my mother's Ford Focus) and there was a long, winding driveway up to the hotel. Even the shrubbery was fancy! But there was a £15 charge to use the car park overnight! In a hotel as posh as the Celtic Manor you'd expect a valet in full livery with some kind of elaborate moustache to come and park the car for you (not that I would have dared let a valet get in my car, amongst the discarded Cadbury wrappers and crumpled up parking tickets). At the very least you expect to park for free. I mean, I can't imagine Obama standing at the ticket machine, counting out his pound coins.

However, by the time we got to the check-in desk, any irritation had been completely replaced with awe. The lobby was huge, with impressive dragon sculptures and giant Rolex clocks, showing the time in a random assortment of countries. It was even more impressive than the Radisson Blu in Cologne (although I may be biased because, well, there were dragons).

It was while we were queueing to check-in that we first spotted our holiday enemy. There is always a holiday enemy, regardless of where you go or whether you're there for two weeks or one solitary night. The holiday enemy is the person who keeps popping up at various points throughout your stay, seemingly with the sole purpose of irritating you.

Our holiday enemy was a lady in amongst a group of women who clearly thought they were auditioning for 'The Real Housewives of South Wales'. I didn't even know that people like this existed in real life, but there they were, looking more glamorous than any person has a right to at three 'o' clock in the afternoon in Newport. And then there was the holiday enemy, flicking her hair as if she was sponsored by L'oreal, laughing loudly so all the little people could hear, and staring down her nose at the rest of the world (literally, because her heels were so high).

"Look at her," My mother said. "She thinks that being in the Celtic Manor means she's really something special. But obviously it doesn't. After all, we're here!"

The room was amazing! There was so much space (I wish my bedroom was half as big) and we had a little sitting area with arms chairs, a desk, a dressing table, a view that stretched out for miles and a mini bar that we were too afraid to so much as look at. Then there was the bathroom. It was heavenly! I mean, the Bryn Meadows may have had a tv in the bathroom, but this bathroom had a giant mirror with lights all around and ample room to do makeup (even for someone who spreads out mess as much as I do).

After exploring the room we did a little turn around the lobby again, investigating the cocktail bars and restaurants and I taught my mother to carry her bag on the crook of her elbow because "that's how the rich people do it". Then we sat and had a coffee (which came with complimentary cakes!) and we tried to work out how we were possibly going to raise enough money to move into the hotel. Because clearly there was no going back to real life after a taste of such luxury.

We ate dinner in the Olive Tree, one of the restaurants downstairs, which served a hot buffet. I won't lie, I stuffed my face. Soup, turkey, duck, vegetables, weird rice things, some kind of gnocchi...I didn't turn down anything. I had five desserts and I feel no shame! Everything was delicious and, best of all, everything was labelled stating whether or not it was gluten free.

Then we got the bill and I thought my mother was going to throw four courses worth of food back up onto her plate.
"£9 for a glass of wine?!"
She complained all the way back to the room. Yes, she moaned about the price of wine all the way through the lobby of the most posh hotel in the country (but, even as she was ranting, she kept her bag on the crook of her arm in an attempt to blend in). Luckily she didn't find out how much my Cosmopolitan had cost until the next day.

After a night spent in wonderfully comfortable beds, and a morning spent stuffing our faces full of delicious breakfast goodies, we went to the pool. It was amazing! There were saunas, steam rooms, hot tubs, jacuzzis, sun loungers, a ceiling with little LCD bulbs, painted to look like the night's sky. It was all so...fancy!

But, all too soon, it was time to check-out. It was so sad, knowing that we were heading back out into a world where people wouldn't rush to our aid whenever we needed something or call us ma'am, a world where there was no one to come and re-fold our napkins between courses, where the baths were regular sizes and no one came to refill your wine glass.

We caught one last sight of our holiday enemy again, flicking her hair and posing.
"You know," I said. "If she really was that posh then she'd know you're not meant to wear open toe shoes after Labour Day."

And that's the story of how, for just one night, my mother and I became all fancy-shmancy, sipping on overpriced wine and dining on food we couldn't pronounce the names of. But alas, when the clock struck 12 it was check-out time and, as we pulled out of the car park, we instantly turned back into pumpkins.

A Princess Perfect Frozen Party...and Some Woman in a Wig.

The Littlest Loon turned five last week and, as a family, Wellingtons are not known for throwing low key, run of the mill celebrations. I attempted to throw a small, casual gathering for my birthday last September and ended up with a full blown Alice in Wonderland extravaganza  ("I want it to feel like an opium trip...lots of clocks and giant mushrooms..."). So it seemed only natural that I would spend the weeks leading up to Lauren's birthday battling with the glue gun, brushing glitter out of my hair and running around town trying to find a life-sized Olaf balloon to put together a Frozen themed party fit for a princess.

The party itself was a roaring success. True, there was a brief period at the start when things looked a little rocky. Lauren worked out how to use the smoke machine and, within a few minutes, you couldn't see from one side of the room to the other. Then the smoke alarms went off and the rest of the building started to evacuate. Right in the midst of the piercing shrieks of the fire alarm, the Elsa impersonator turned up and added an entirely new dimension of weirdness to the scene. Her yellow wig was off centre and her black bra was on show. Overall, I'm not sure anyone was convinced she was really the Queen of Arendelle.

"I'm not sure anyone was convinced..."

But, once we'd deactivated the smoke alarms, opened all the doors and windows to let out the fog, and 'Elsa' had left the building, things really picked up. We had all the usual children's party games, pass the parcel and musical statues. Then we brought out the karaoke, which was simply adorable right up until the third or fourth time I had to listen to another rendition of Let it Go. There were happy children everywhere and, after the last little one headed off with their party cone and a big grin on her face, I was more than happy to take a deep breath, relax into a chair and have a Jack Daniels. Who would have thought organising a fifth birthday party could be so stressful?


Anyway, I thought I'd show you some of the little bits and pieces I put together for the party in case any of you are planning a Frozen themed party of your own and want a few ideas. Most of the decorations I made were put together with things I already had around the house so be creative. In this instance anything with glitter is probably going to work just fine. 

I rushed this sign yesterday morning right before we went to the party and it's taken me until just now to realise I'd spelled Arendelle wrong (I knew it didn't look right!). Luckily most of our guests can't read very well yet so I think it went undetected for the most part.  

 I loved these little jars! I made three of them and each was slightly different. They were very simple to make, although quite time consuming. I made some very small tissue pom poms (instructions can be found on Google), glued them to some ice blue straws and embellished them with glitter and sparkly ribbon. I cut some snowflakes out of plain white card (who knew snowflakes were so hard to draw?) and added some gems and glitter and stuck them to the straws too. I made the little snowmen out of little white pom poms and coloured wooden craft sticks. Then I added some ribbon and sparkles to glass jars, stuffed them with cotton wool and arranged the decorations inside. 

I wish we had a better picture of the snow doorway, but you get the idea. The kids loved it (although by the end of the party it looked less like a flurry and more like the aftermath of a blizzard). I just threaded cotton wool balls of various sizes onto fishing wire. With the glue gun I secured each ball with a dot of glue underneath so they wouldn't slide back down the wire. Then I attached each length of fishing wire to ribbon, which we then pinned to the door frame so guests had to walk through the snow to enter the party.

These little food signs were easy to make and really emphasized the theme. It's essentially folded card that looks fancy because I added glittery snowflakes and cut it with a craft scissors. Sometimes the simplest things look the most effective.

I piped faces and buttons onto these marshmallows with writing icing. I never want to see another marshmallow for as long as I live, but the kids really loved them.

 

The Sven cupcakes were a big hit! All I did was ice my cupcakes with chocolate butter-cream, use mini marshmallows for the noses, iced on the eyes and mouths with writing icing and used cut up Curly Wurlys for the antlers.

Then my sister-in-law amazed everyone by making a three tier birthday cake. True, it's got nothing on Cake Boss, but considering she just picked up some icing and thought, 'I think I'll make Lauren's cake myself' I think it's fabulous! I thought cupcakes were stressful, but this is something else entirely!

Needless to say, it's going to be a while before I can bring myself to watch Frozen again. I'm still finding glitter in my shoes and last night, after weeks of stressful planning and late night glue-gunning, I slept for a solid twelve hours without any party related nightmares for the first time in a while. But Princess Lauren had a fabulous time and overall I'd call it a success. 

Now to plan my birthday party for next weekend. I've been pre-warned by my mother that this year all themes are banned...

Another Little Loon

So I’m nearing the end of a 4 and half hour train journey up to North Wales to visit one of my best friends, Beth. I do not enjoy trains. Public transport is, after all, where society’s loons congregate. Like the lady across the carriage who stared intently at me for 20 minutes. And the old woman who stood in the middle of the aisle, shouting about everyone and everything and refused to take her seat because she was convinced the conductor was ‘up to something’.

So I thought it would help make time go by a little faster (and keep me from having to make eye contact with anyone) if I caught up on some blogging. Despite the fact that my life has become boring and meaningless since I left uni, it’s surprisingly hard to find the time to sit down and type up a blog. 

If you read The Littlest Loon then you'll get the idea behind this post. This time the spotlight falls on my nine year old nephew, Ellis, who was born an old man and, in recent months, has taken to informing me that I'm embarrassingly uncool (gone are the days when my knowledge of Disney films and extensive fancy dress collection made me a legend in his eyes).

A few weeks ago I asked him a series of questions to see what kinds of bizarre ideas lurk in that little brain of his. There are some very odd answers. Everything I said is in red and Ellis' ramblings are in blue. 

What makes you the most happy?

Having someone to play with.

What’s your favourite food?

Meat.

What advice would you give to mammy and daddy?

You’re awesome.

If you were invisible for a day, what would you do?

Not go to school.

You’re not in school now and you’re visible.

...Still not go to school.

What’s your favourite thing about Lauren?

Pause

She's cute?

What’s your least favourite thing about Lauren?

She annoying.

What are the best at?

Building things.

How would you describe your Auntie Aimee?

She’s amazing! (Emphasis added)

What’s your favourite memory?

When I went to Disneyland?

What part?

When I went to Sea World.

What was your favourite holiday?

When I went to Greece for the last time. 

If you could go anywhere where would you go?

Texas.

Why?

Because it’s awesome.

If you had a million pound what would you do?

…..

Mulling it over?

…..

A million pound. What would you do?

Go to Route 66 and buy the Lego Movie video game…because that’s the best game you can get and you can get a better chance of not having a glitch if you buy it in California.

…Ok.

What’s your favourite time of the year?

Summer.

Why?

Because it’s the season that people umm…go on strike. And you can go down the beach a lot.

Do you have a girlfriend?

No.

Do you want a girlfriend?

No.

Why?
Because I don’t.

What five words best describe you?

That’s too hard for me. I can’t.

What’s the hardest thing about being a kid?

You have to do more…you have a lot of problems because you have lots of bullies.

What’s the best thing about being a kid?

That if a ship is sinking, children get off first.

If you could have one super power, what super power would you have?

Oooh. I can’t think...Telekinese.

Telekinesis?

Yeah.

What do you want for Christmas this year?

Mmm. Disney Infinity 2.0 if I don’t get it… if it isn’t….no. No, not that. The Lego Movie video game. That’s the main one.

And now that I've shared the weird and wonderful musings of a nine year old loon, I have to return to my train journey of doom...making a concious effort not to accidentally glance over in the direction of the woman I'm pretty sure is still staring at me. 

My Blogging Birthday!

Firstly, seeing as this is a post dedicated to the celebration of this date, I know it seems ridiculous to be writing it at 10pm when the day is almost over. But I spent the entire day at a safari park (which is a whole other weird, wonderful and saliva-filled story) and this is the first chance I've had to sit down and get to work.

Somehow it has been an entire year since I started this blog. I started it with no clear vision, knowledge of computers or idea of what I was doing. In fact, it only came about because so many people informed me they liked to keep up to date with my Facebook statuses because, apparently, they're hilarious. Then one night, in a night club in Exeter, a slightly tipsy girl I'd never seen before suddenly called my name.
"Oh wow! I read your status updates on Facebook. I always log in to see if you've said something funny. I love them! Seriously, there are so amazing!"
At that point I decided on two things. Firstly, I needed to change my Facebook privacy settings. And secondly, I needed to start a blog.

And so twenty oddball was born one year ago today and in that time I've blogged about:

- Enormous pants
- A transatlantic love interest
- Hugging Floella Benjamin
- Men who claim to own gondolas (but clearly don't)
- Elves
- Various near-death experiences

And those are just a handful of examples off the top of my head.

Actually, when it's all laid out like that, I have to acknowledge that it's been a really weird year...

But, what's very depressing is the fact that, even though the last year has seen me travel Europe, graduate from university and survive the Eurovision, I've somehow wound up in exactly the same place as I was when I first started twenty oddball. In my first ever blog post I wrote...

"At 21 years old I find myself back at my parents' house during the summer break from uni, and very, very single"


And here I am, exactly one year later, back at my parents' house after graduation, and very, very single. I'm not convinced that I've really made that much progress.

But, if nothing else seems to be moving forward at a visible rate, at least my blog is doing well. What started out as a kind of vague mess of ramblings has, during the last year, flowered into a vague mess of ramblings with an accompanying twitter account. And the occasional reader!

And, for the nosey among you, you might like to know that in my first year I've had 6,118 views and my most popular post was F-Words All Round: Freebies, Fun, and Foul Cocktails.

So here's to twenty oddball and let's keep our fingers crossed that my life will continue along unexpected and somewhat bizarre paths so that I can entertain you all for years to come!

My Life as a Grown Up gets Boring...and Sticky

I know things have been quiet on the blog-front recently. That's an understatement. I'm actually surprised virtual tumble-weeds haven't started rolling across the page. But that's just a reflection on my life right now. No job = no money = no fun = nothing to ramble about. I haven't even graduated yet and I'm already fed up with life as a full-time grown up.

I had every intention of sharing the highs, lows and inevitable humiliations of my night out in Swansea this past Wednesday. Unfortunately I woke up on Thursday morning with nothing more than a vague recollection of a McChicken sandwich and the stench of shisha clinging to my hair (I dread to think how much that cost me) and that hardly makes for a gripping blog post. Seriously though, that was the first and last time I will drink Bacardi. 

Hayfever destroys my face 

I'm meant to be on an exciting adventure today, but I managed to make a pig's ear out of it. Tonight is the Cosmopolitan Super Bloggers Masterclass (or some kind of similar awesome name to the same effect) and I've had my ticket for months. I was counting down the days until I could go up to London, make new friends, learn lots of great tips, and, perhaps most exciting of all, take home an epic goodie bag. Unfortunately, while I was counting down to the 23rd July, the event was in fact on the 23rd June and, while planning a trip to London was never going to be easy, planning one in two days with no money was impossible. Especially when certain friends who live in London refuse to return your frantic messages, begging them to let you sleep on their sofa. I will name no names. Cough cough Tim! I'm so disappointed I can't go!

To make things even more boring (and miserable) my hayfever has forced me to barricade myself in my bedroom. I genuinely thought there could be nothing worse than sitting in my little room with a flannel over my face, wheezing like Joseph Merrick and listening to the rest of the world enjoying the first glorious summer Wales has seen since the Dark Ages. But then I went downstairs and realised all the Jaffa Cakes were gone and I hit a whole new low.

In other news, the fire alarm the firemen installed a few months back started screeching incessantly in the early hours of the morning because the battery was starting to wear out. It wouldn't shut up until someone hit it with the feather duster. This ridiculous ritual would start again every fifteen minutes until I lost my patience and ripped it apart with my bare hands. Now it's just making a feeble, but continuous ticking noise and there are bits of plastic scattered all over the landing.       

So, the past few weeks have been fairly uneventful. But, regardless of how high the pollen count gets and how swollen and sticky my eyes become and, in spite of my ever-dwindling lack of funds, I simply must get out and have some crazy new adventures. Even if it's only because the bloody ticking of that fire alarm is going to drive my crazy otherwise.

Nil Pois and an Excessive Amount of Wandering

My favourite way to spend Eurovision night is sat in front of the tv with my dad, arguing over whether or not half the countries even exist and resorting to pulling out the atlas, which never settles anything because it's so old it still has the USSR in it. I will expose my worrying lack of geographical awareness ("Wait, I thought Belgium was the capital of Holland...") and we will give a running commentary on everything...including the running commentary.

This year was different. My friend, Shaun, was hosting a fundraiser so I spent this Eurovision night in the local golf club, taking part in a drinking game that rendered me useless before half the performances had happened. Drink every time someone winks at the camera, there's someone on stage doing something pointless in the background, Russia gives points to the Ukraine...it was intense.

So I wasn't surprised when I ended up in a taxi on the way to Swansea at half past midnight. I was in no way shocked when I found myself having an in-depth and weirdly emotional conversation in the women's toilets about a girl's choice of lipstick colour. I wasn't even flummoxed when I looked up from my Jack Daniel's to find all my friends had been kicked out of Bambu. But I still can't grasp how I came to end up in the smoking area of Monkey, consoling a random man about his recent breakup. But here are the facts as I know them.

I had, in front of me, a free drink. (Note to my mother, yes I watched the bar tender pour it and no I did not take my eyes off it for a second.) To my left was a good-looking man who, from the outset, appeared to be somewhat of a compulsive liar.
"I work here." He said. It was entirely plausible.
"Oh, at the bar?"
"No, I'm a bouncer."
I tried to remember which shoes I was wearing so I could do a quick calculation of how tall he was. Not very.
"Oh, you don't look big and bald and scary enough to be a bouncer."
He laughed it off. Later I found out he was a promotions worker.

Nonetheless, we had a good time. Then I realised that the club was closing and everyone else was missing. There was, at the back of my mind, a vague memory of a search party going after Jonny and Hayleigh walking past me, telling me they'd been told to leave. Even now, I have no idea what any of that meant, but I knew then that they'd gone to Monkey. Whatever that was.

"You have to take me to Monkey." I told Mr Bouncer.
His friends did not look impressed. One of them had just broken up with his girlfriend and looked like he'd rather chew his own arm off than go to another club. 
"I have no idea where it is and I can't go wandering around Swansea on my own."

So we headed off. Me, Mr Bouncer, Mr Heartbroken and...some other guy. It wasn't until we got to Monkey that he earned himself the nickname Mr Forgot-my-ID. And so, following a barrage of complex conversations and assurances, I ended up in the smoking area with Mr Heartbroken, leaving angry and probably very confusing messages on each of my friends' answering machines. From here things went from unusual to plain weird.

There I was, giving my best drunk love advice to a stranger who clearly wanted to be anywhere else, waiting for some sign of any of my friends or even Mr Bouncer, when a random man sat down on the other side of me. He explained, in great detail, that it was his birthday and he was all alone and in need of a friend. As much as my sensitive heart felt sorry for him, he gave off a bit of a crazy vibe. I looked to Mr Heartbroken to do something, but he seemed too relieved by the fact that I was no longer lecturing him on the downfall of chivalry to shoo away this new guy.

Luckily, all at once, a very odd phone call from Hayleigh confirmed they had somehow made their way down to a gay club I'd never heard of, and Mr Bouncer arrived.
"You have to take me to the gay club." I told him.
"What?"
"My friends are there and I have no idea where it is."
Suddenly the birthday boy piped up and offered to take me.
"No offence," Said Mr Bouncer. "But I don't know who you are and I don't feel comfortable sending her off alone with you." I didn't point out the fact that I'd only met him two hours before.

I very rarely get hit on and, when I do, it throws me a little bit. So try to imagine how awkward it was, heading off to a gay club with a man on either side of me, vying for my attention.
"I just bought a new car."
"I have a convertible."
"I take three holidays a year."
"I'm going to China this summer."
Oh goodness, I just want Hayleigh!

Right in the midst of what was becoming an intense struggle for alpha male status, I spotted my friends on the other side of the street. I'm not entirely sure they'd even noticed I'd been missing for the past few hours. They all seemed very merry.

So I thanked my escorts, who were still quibbling about who could out-do the other, apologised for the drama I'd caused and jumped in a taxi with Hayleigh. The moral of this story is...don't get lost. And if you do, don't try to give love advice to strangers. Always carry a rape alarm. And don't believe a man when he tells you he's a bouncer. If your friends go missing, check the gay bar first and always, always wear a good shade of lipstick.

I guess next year I'll just stay at home with my dad and the old atlas.

My Biggest Challenge: Week 1

Let's clarify something. I can't run. At all.

At this point people tend to think I'm being modest and will attempt to say comforting things like, "Everyone can run if they really try", "I'm sure you aren't that bad", or, worst of all, "Oh, me neither". I don't even want to think about the number of times someone has forced me to don a pair of trainers and head outside for a jog because 'they can't run either'. The result is always the same. They prove that, in reality, they can run, while I stagger behind, wishing I could catch up with them...so I could strangle them for making me go running.

I can't pinpoint exactly what it is that makes me entirely incapable of putting one foot in front of the other. My Dad ran marathons back in the day so a few years back I asked him to survey my technique. After a few disastrous sessions he said he'd never seen anything like it, it defied all logic, and that there was nothing he could do for me. My extreme lack of co-ordination and balance have something to do with it, I'm sure, but my failure seems to run deeper than that. Even as a small child I refused to play tag. I simply could not do it.

So, because life isn't difficult enough with my dissertation still buzzing around my head like a swarm of gnats and an essay due next week I've lost all my notes for, I've signed myself up for a sponsored run. Because apparently deep down I must be some kind of masochist. But what's the point in asking people to sponsor me for something easy or that I enjoy like fancy dress, a bake sale, or a cocktail drinking marathon (although you can add that last one to my list of things to do this summer)?

The 5k (yes, 5 whole k) is in June and I thought I'd share my progress in a weekly update of all the horrors of training. Because what's the point in inflicting misery and humiliation on myself if no one else can enjoy it?

Week 1

Day 1

I downloaded a running app to help me out. What I really need is some kind of magical genie, but this will have to do. It's called 5k Runner and it's supposed to get you 5k ready in just 8 weeks. It's a really useful app and if you're looking to take up running and have no will power or clue where to start, I highly recommend it. Even I can keep up with it, although I have to make allowances for the time I spend tripping over my own feet.

Letting go of the treadmill was my first big challenge. People really downplay how traumatising it can be to use one of those machines. My feet rarely do what they're supposed under normal circumstances so when the ground started moving I was convinced I was going to end up with an injury.

Day 3

I fell off the treadmill.

I was jogging, concentrating on the weird way my arms were moving and trying not to look down at my feet (watching the treadmill move makes me nauseous. I know, I am a model athlete) and then everything went wrong. My arm must have gotten tangled in the wire of my earphones so my phone flew across the gym. I turned around in shock, my feet forgot to move and the treadmill kept going. I ended up twisted in a weird angle, unable to understand what was happening, one foot on the treadmill, one foot off, incapable of making it stop. The guy directly behind me was totally judging me.

Day 6

I did not fall and managed to do the whole workout without stopping for fear of falling, which is a first. Hopefully no one else at the gym has picked up on the fact that my maximum running time is still only a minute (the app is building me up, run a little, walk a little), but the grey-haired lady on the treadmill next to mine almost definitely noticed that she was running significantly faster than me.


So week one is over, my legs hurt, I have some bruises and the gym instructor definitely thinks I'm weird. But I've raised £70 for a really good cause and the physical suffering of running makes a nice change from the mental suffering associated with writing my dissertation.

And now I am going to shamelessly promote my justgiving page where you can keep up to date with my fundraising...or, you know, donate to a good cause.

My Fundraising Page!!

I'm raising money for Action Duchenne, which is a very important charity to me.

Wish me luck in the upcoming week. I don't want to fall again...

There's No Place Like Home

It's been a while since I last wrote a post. I've been slowly sinking in a pool of despair and MLA referencing, but I'm officially half-way through my dissertation and the end is finally in sight. I'd planned out the entire month of April to ensure I had half a hope of retaining what was left of my sanity. The plan was to spend the first two weeks at my desk until I had at least a solid first draft, to go back home to Wales the next week and force everyone to proof read it, and then spend the last week sleeping soundly, minus the looming prospect of antebellum-themed nightmares.

I made it to the 3rd of April before I abandoned that plan entirely and booked a train ticket home.

I decided to be very sneaky about the whole thing and surprise my loving parents by turning up on their doorstep two weeks early. So, last Saturday, after five hours of public transport and a taxi ride, I burst through the front door, ready to spread joy.

"Surprise! Your favourite child is home!"

My father, who had been napping on the sofa, looked like he was caught somewhere between thrilled and terrified. My mother appeared at the top of the stairs a few seconds later and merely said,

"Shh! Your brother's sleeping."

Clearly the favourite child had been there all along and was currently sleeping off his night shift in my bed.

As much as I wanted to collapse on the sofa, enjoying the novelty of warmth and cleanliness (student houses are grim to say the least), it was my cousin's 18th birthday party that night. I had just enough time to stick some rollers in and don some fabulous shoes.

Family gatherings are always eventful, but they are downright dangerous when Dave the Laugh, my older cousin's boyfriend, is there. He lurks around the house, waiting for the opportune moment to swoop in and top up your drink, which sounds great, but, in reality, borders on deadly. On this particular night it led me to declare,

"I'm going to town!"

I do NOT look like the older cousin...

Yes, I was going to crash my little cousin's first night out. And in Station Road of all places. I have plenty of good memories of Station Road. But I was 16 then. And fishbowls were on sale.

Totally unprepared for a night out and two and a half bottles of wine worse off when I thought I'd only gone through one, I had to borrow a handbag. And a phone. And money. But off I went with my cousin and her friends, totally oblivious to the fact that I had somehow become the uncool, old person.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only uncool, old person in Station Road that night. Hayleigh was there with some of our friends. I wish I could describe the level of gleeful screeching that occurred when we spotted each other at the bar. I imagine it's the kind of noise you'd expect to hear if dolphins were reunited after 20 years apart. Dolphins on crack. And perhaps even more shrill than that.

It wasn't long before my cousin had ditched me (I swear, I used to be cool!) and Hayleigh and I ended up in a bizarre after-party in a nearby hotel. It wasn't so much a party as a random collection of people arguing over which drinking game to play while I insisted on slurring through stories about last year's adventures in Europe. All I know is, a Scottish man was wrapped in a blanket and there was an excessive amount of gin.

And, in a nutshell, that's the story of how, on my first night back in Wales, I turned up on my parents' doorstep at 4am and came to spend the entire following day curled up in a ball, cursing Dave the Laugh.


But, before I go back to my cave of despair and dissertation-writing, I'm going to do a little shameless self-promotion. I've set up a Youtube channel (yes, in spite of my technophobia) dedicated to me talking about beauty products, and generally making a fool of myself in front of the camera. So here's my latest video if you want to take a peek.

And, because I have such little faith in my ability to actually use the computer, I'll post the link to the channel...just in case.

Youtube Channel

The Beacon in Wales: Part 2

I didn't intend to keep you in suspense for so long, but this week has been challenging to say the least. We aren't even a month into 2014 and I've been hit with a kidney infection, the horror of navigating the university mitigation process, some kind of strange stress induced rash on my hands, and, when all was said and done, I was too ill to sit the exam anyway. Now I'll have to come all the way back up to Exeter in August to sit it. As you can imagine, I'm currently writing this through the haze of last night's Scotch. I cried, I drank, I watched Mulan, and now I feel somewhat better.

"Why did I agree to come here?"

Anyway, this is not going to be a 'woe is me' post. This is picking up from where I left off in my last post. The Beacon and I had checked out of our hotel and were heading to my parents' house in Port Talbot. One of the striking things about approaching from Port Talbot from the east is that the first thing you're hit with is the sight of the steelworks. Unless, that is, you are hit with the smell first. For anyone who lives there it's a strangely comforting sight. "Yes! Home at last." For everyone else it must be slightly disturbing. "Why did I agree to come here?"

The Beacon only said that it was strange that people lived right next door to it. And right next door to the motorway. And in houses that seemed to be built practically on top of one another. In Wales our houses are generally small and squashed together. We're only a teeny tiny country after all.

Once the Beacon had been introduced to my parents and shown to the 'spare room' (which is so small that once he put his suitcase in there all the floor space vanished), we sat down in the living room and my parents tried to give off an air of normality. My mother was talking in her telephone voice so the Beacon would have half a chance of deciphering her accent.

That evening we went to the local pub, the Tyn y Twr, or 'tiny tour' if you're the Beacon. It was there that the Beacon first met my brother.
"Bonjour!"
Great, he's drunk.
I had to later assure the Beacon that it wasn't just the accent. In fact, none of us had understood very much of what he'd said. But such is the beauty of New Year I guess.

"we were very cultured"

The next day we were very cultured and went to the Penderyn Distillery for a tour of Wales' only distillery. I would highly recommend it. It was cheap to get in, it was interesting, the staff were lovely (obviously, they were Welsh) and the free samples at the end were in no way stingy. The only downside was the Beacon constantly asking me to translate the Welsh signs into English, despite the fact that there was already an English translation printed below. And I haven't spoken Welsh since I finished school. My brain didn't seem to understand what I was trying to make it do.

We were intending to continue along the cultural side of things the next day, but the mine in The Big Pit was under construction and it was too wet, windy, and cold to venture to St Fagans so we went to see the new Disney film, Frozen, instead. Not particularly Welsh admittedly, but it was so great. Even though we were the oldest people there. And the bad weather had messed with the ventilation systems in the cinema. I'm sure the cold would have been more bearable if we weren't watching a film about snow. As it was, even with my coat and scarf on, I felt like I had somehow become part of the film.

That night my parents threw a party. There was no way they could convincingly disguise the fact that it was in fact an excuse for my entire nosy family to meet the Beacon up close and personal, but he handled it very well. Even when my mother's friend got drunk and told him she loved him...4 times. And when my niece wrapped herself around his leg and refused to let go. It takes a special kind of person to make it through these kinds of family functions with their sanity still in tact. I barely made it myself, having to crawl into bed at 3am while my auntie and the Beacon continued to discuss why the Americans consider the Brits rude and why we, in turn, perceive them as slightly crazy.

The next day was questionably even stranger. We visited my brother's house, where my niece, still at the height of her affections, would not let the Beacon out of her sight and randomly adopted an American accent. Then of course, she donned her Toddlers and Tiaras dress I made her for Christmas and danced to Eden Wood songs for 20 minutes, insisting that we "keep watching" and "act surprised".

That night we went to Cinnamon, which is a fairly new Indian restaurant near where I live. The food is amazing and it would have been nice to take a romantic stroll along the seafront afterwards. As is was, we valued our lives too much. The weather was like something out of The Day After Tomorrow. So we just headed home.

And all too quickly came Sunday 5am and a trip back to Bristol airport. Luckily this time my father drove, but the Beacon refused to let me sleep on his shoulder. He said I should get used to early mornings. I am not willing to even count 5am as morning. It was still dark.

I can't say I miss being woken up at 9am by the Beacon shouting in my face to see how much he can make me jump. Or the annoying way he pronounces aluminium. Or the criticisms on my cooking (my toast was perfectly fine, thank you very much). Or the crowd we seemed to attract every time we left the house ("Oh, is this the American we've heard so much about?"). But I do miss the Beacon. And watching the amusing way my niece followed him all over the house. But, next time I guess, is Germany.