Things 44 and 90 in Somerset

I recently spent 4 decades with my family at my grandparents' house in Somerset.

Oh hang on... no, I just checked my diary, apparently it was only 4 days... The West Country must work on a similar time scale to Narnia because by the time we returned I had definitely gained several grey hairs and that 'oh i give up' look that can only normally be found in the eyes of 50-something year old mothers of 5.

Herewegoooo

Thing 44: Teach Your Grandparents Something New

I taught my grandfather how to use an iPhone. I'm not sure why I thought this would be a good idea, because he doesn't own an iPhone. So after he'd got the hang of it, he used mine to read the paper and check the weather and watch youtube videos and search google for 'Bill Turnbull date of birth'. So probably not the wisest idea I've ever had.

Although now, the man who has received 2 text messages since Christmas, only turns his mobile on when he wants to phone someone and started with £10 credit in September 2006 and still has £7.50 left, is 'looking into' buying himself an iPhone... Fair enough, I guess.

Other than eating breakfast at 5.45 in the morning, admiring expensive chinaware and repeatedly telling people that we're related to Barbara Windsor, one of my family's favourite activities to pass the time is Going For A Drive.

A few years ago, somebody bought Grandad a satnav, which he loves more than most members of his family BUT there was some sort of a mishap involving France and speed-cameras and a €1500 fine that nobody entirely understood nor was willing to listen to the explanation again in order to understand.

Thing 90: Get From A to B Using A Map

'A' was the charming industrial estate that is Bridgwater and 'B' was the city of Bath that is not only one of my favourite places in Britain but also held the beautiful promise of a few hours to myself whilst I went shopping and my family admired the architecture (in case they'd forgotten it since last summer).

This journey shouldn't really take more than an hour and should be relatively painless. Pah.

The thing is, not only do i get so incredibly travel sick that i sometimes have to lie down after the 15 minute bus journey to school but recently being in a car accident on the M25 has left me with an OHFUCKNOPLEASEICAN'TLOOK attitude to motorways. Naturally, this made me the perfect candidate for map reading.

At least, I would be, if my Grandad believed a word i said:

"You need to turn right here"
"No I don't" *20 minutes later* "Where are we? What did you do? I haven't seen this before"

"Okay, you need to take the second left and we'll be going the right way"
"Don't be ridiculous that'll take us to Higgedy-upon-Cow"

"Go straight on at this junction"
"Oh there's a traffic jam, I'm going to go right"

This is the man who regularly goes on 6 week driving holidays across Europe, and i genuinely believe that the last 60 years of his transit has been largely trial and error.

To top it all off, my small cousin seems to have recently decided that he is A Man, thus requiring him to sit with his legs 3 meters apart and wear so much Lynx that you can practically see it dripping from his clothing.

His favourite in-car pastime is 'the meat game', where he makes my grandmother (who has never set foot in a fast-food establishment in her life) guess the price of different chicken meals from various fried chicken shops until she gets it exactly right.

HOWEVER, we did get to Bath, finally, and we got home again, so I'm counting it as a success.

The Lion, The Witch and The... Lamppost?

In my last post I claimed to have been busy. Here, you will begin to understand why.

You may know that i quite like theatre. You may then also know that I spend a bit of time at a theatre. (Just, you know, every spare waking moment I've had for the past 2 and a half years)

Therefore, Thing 17: Act in a play and even Thing 86: Sing in front of an audience, are pretty easy to say that I've done. In fact, I feel I've done them enough that any blog post I write about them will be exceptionally dull.

Instead, I will tell you about this: I am part of the aforementioned theatre's youth group. As one of the 3 or 4  older members of the youth group, I had quite a large amount of input into this year's youth production which was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. In fact, this much input:

Although I'm not sure if the programme quite shows the 2 full weeks we spent getting to the theatre at 10 in the morning and locking ourselves in a room until midnight making sure that the set, costume, props, tech and whatever else you care to name was ready in time for the performance nights.

We had some help from people who did actually know what they were doing, and that was lovely (especially when it got to 4 days before the opening night and our wardrobe was delivered in pieces, without a door, or wheels and painted bright orange and we genuinely had to consider doing the play without it) but it really and truly was a 'youth' production, and I'm really proud of that. I love theatre because it's so massive, a play is not just acting, it's more like an enormous multi-dimensional creature for the audience to experience and live in for 2 hours rather than just watch. Alright, enough of my pretentiousness, here are some photos of wot we done:

One of our two 8x4 flats which took a long time to paint. They were double sided and on wheels so could be moved and spun to create different scenes.

In the background is what the other side of the flats looked like - a house interior complete with wallpaper and wood panelling. In front is our amazing wardrobe which a lovely man called Phil spent almost 3 entire days perfecting.

Our little production team, with the most of the stone table which took DAYS of discussing and sketching and cutting and stapling and painting until it was exactly right - you might not be able to see how much of an achievement it was by the picture but the joy on our faces might give you some sort of clue.

If you feel like this is cheating, here's proof of a play I did actually act in, and sing a little bit. And rap, actually... not that that will be happening ever again:

Whilst looking through my book, I realised that during this process I also managed to complete a few other things.

Thing 20: Stay up all night (I assume this was meant to be in a fun, going to a party, having a laugh with friends way, not a eating risotto at half 1, sewing up fur coats and being too stressed to sleep way, BUT IT STILL COUNTS)

In the same vein - Thing 21: Sleep all day (Not actually the day after the last night - that was the set strike, or even the day after that - I spent that at the Olympic Park watching hockey, but I got home at 4 that afternoon, went straight to bed and didn't resurface until 1 the next afternoon)

Thing 21: Paint A Picture Good Enough to Hang on The Wall. I painted the picture for the poster, I probably wouldn't agree that it was good enough to go on a wall, but it did. I spent 20 minutes painting it a few months ago when I probably should have been doing something else, like revising for GCSEs, but it did its job:

Thing 19: Make A T-Shirt. (I didn't stitch it with my own hands, it wasn't really my idea and I'm never going to wear it, all the same:

And now I am quite happy to never go near a theatre, a fabric shop or a pot of Atlantis blue paint, ever again. (Until September, obviously)

52, 67, 72: Life Update

 Well... Hello there. I haven't written a blog in a while. I've been really busy, okay? Don't look at me like that, I haven't had time for all this writing stuff.

Really really busy.

I HAVE been doing things, very busy things, promise. Those 101 things I've been trying to do, remember that? Yeah, some of those things got done.

I'll start with Thing Number 52: Swim and 67: Build the ultimate sandcastle

About a month ago, we went on holiday. 'We' of course means my ENTIRE family, plus some extras. 13 people in total? Maybe? I don't remember. We filled two houses and a beach hut, whichever corner of Southwold you looked in, there'd be some ancient member of the friend family lurking there, probably eating a slice of sponge cake.

Luckily I was not the only person under the age of 50. When not playing scrabble, drinking tea or riding up and down the road on a mobility scooter, my cousin Emily and I made the most of our youthfulness by cycling and shopping and swimming. Swimming in the sea. (The North Sea) Most days. Despite the fact it rained non-stop the entire week and each time we got out the water my lips were actually blue and it took 10 minutes until I could feel my legs again. Hmm... now I put it like that, it doesn't sound so great. But it was fun at the time! I think... Ah who am I kidding, to put it quite simply, there's nothing else to do there if you're not into sitting in an octagonal room, silently wondering what might be for dinner.

Another thing we did though was building the ULTIMATE sandcastle. Here it is, pretty ultimate, I think you'll agree.

We drew inspiration from Hogwarts and Cair Paravel, it even had a proper little archway for an entrance. Whilst creating our masterpiece, we discussed if a 16 year old and a 23 year old are too old to be building a sandcastle. Our conclusion: No. Although we are too old to be carrying spades without looking like frenzied murderers. Proof:

Whilst we were in Southwold, Latitude Festival happened, in Southwold. So we went (Not all of us, obviously, that would have been a ridiculous exercise which would probably have resulted in at least one fatality).

Here is where I completed Thing 72: See A Music Idol Perform Live. I'm not sure who I would consider to be a music idol but my favourite band at the moment is probably Alt-J. and I saw them. And they were fantastic, if you haven't heard of them, go and listen now. The way I see it is: if you like music, then you can't dislike Alt-J.
Some of my other highlights included:
-seeing a band called Breton in a tent that smelt like a rabbit cage, admiring the bassist's crazy dancing then seeing him later, running at him and telling him how much we loved his dancing, like two insane fangirls.
-getting a poem written for us by this poet
-wandering into the Cabaret tent and seeing Adam Kay being all hilarious.
-watching middle-class, middle-aged festival goers getting more and more agitated as we queued for a minibus.
-walking through some woods that were so perfect and pretty, I felt like I was in Twilight.
-unexpectedly seeing Simon Armitage reading a load of poems that I studied for GCSE English and finally appreciating how good they actually are.

Thing 57

If you start your morning sweeping a mouse out of your house with a copy of the Radio Times, whilst wearing your pyjamas and being stared at by a selection of confused/amused friends, neighbours and delivery men, you know it's going to be an interesting day.

It was a pretty interesting day.

Most exciting of all was that I completed Thing 57, which is: Plant a tree.

If you read this blog, you'll know that I went to my Prom last week. If you follow me on Twitter, you might know that I returned from prom with a tree. This tree:

I can't remember why. But it isn't stealing if it doesn't actually belong to anyone, right? Anyway, I'd prefer to think of it as rescuing. I rescued this tree.

My dad said that it was cruel to keep it in my room and I had to set it free. So I moved it to someone else's room, where he wouldn't see it. Then yesterday I bought a big plant pot and today I put it in the big plant pot. 

Well, I say I put it in the plant pot, I was a bit clueless, so Jess stepped in to assist with removing snails and bits of stone and other mysterious garden type things from the soil. 

Then we watered it and put it in the sun. Then we named him, Toby. Toby the Tree. 

And here he is, looking splendid:

Thing 63

I've had an insane couple of days and now I have the plague. For this reason, I have spent the last half an hour sitting under my duvet, drinking lemsip and trying to find a thing to do that will be relatively easy and I can complete without leaving my room.

Thing number 63: List the things your parents say they'll tell you the answer to when you're older.

This is easy because my parents never ever said 'I'll tell you when your older', about anything. At least, not that I can remember...

Instead, if I ever asked an awkward question, they'd just lie. Therefore, I believe much of my childhood was based upon complete falsehoods told to me by, not just my parents, but other people in general.

Technically, I could leave this here. But that would be no good.

So instead, I thought I'd tell you 5 of the stupid things that I believed as a little'un:

1) If you don't brush your hair twice a day, it will get so tangled that it will all have to be shaved off.
- my parents

This was a particularly horrible concept, I had really, really long hair. It stopped at the top of my legs and, like any sane child, I hated having it brushed. Understandably, this lie was pretty effective but I can confirm it is complete rubbish. My hair is still pretty long, I lost my hairbrush about 4 months ago and haven't got round to looking for it/buying a new one. So I wash my hair and leave it to do what it wants. And it's fine.

2) If you eat more than 3 biscuits in one day then you'll be so sick you'll have to go to hospital.
- my parents

ha. HA.

3) I'm dyslexic
- my primary school.

I wasn't, I was just so short sighted that I couldn't read or write with any great skill because I couldn't actually see the page. For some strange reason dyslexia was the first conclusion... and tests for that are somewhat more time consuming than an eye test. I also wasn't too happy, I could read really well! But only if my nose was actually touching the book.

4) If you lose a library book, you have to write a letter of apology to the government.

I don't even know who told me this, I might have made it up in my own head... In fact, it concerned me so much that I've never lost a library book. So maybe it's actually true?

5) A woman gets pregnant when a man and a woman take all their clothes off and kiss, in a public toilet.
- my best friend when I was 9.

At the time, I knew there was something wrong with this explanation. The logical parts of my brain told me that it was simply too oddly specific and completely impractical to be true. But still, I was 9 and she was 11, what did I know?
(I only believed this for a few weeks before asking my parents if it was true - the exact answer I got: "no." And I was happy enough with that)

So, there you go. Another fascinating insight -_-
I'm off to blow my nose and eat strepsils.