June 2012 ... as I have Nothing Bizzare to Call this Blog!

Told my boyfriend how much I loved him this evening - a bit soppy, but it felt really good :)  He's such a fantastic person and even though I'm so far away from him at the moment, back at home, i know he's always deep in my heart ^_^*

Anyways, onto awesome stuff! - finally moving out of my hell-hole of a flat :D moving in with my awesome friends in August/September to our new house and it's going to be epic! This summer, I'm planning on working for a charity who run a nursary for young kids and disabled kids which sounds like fun.  After coming home as well, I finally recieved my birthday presents from my brother - he got me a DVD (Howl's Moving Castle) which I can't wait to watch and some "plastic squeezy decorators" in otherwords those things you use for piping icing - gonna have a LOT of fun with those as it gives me an excellent excuse to make cakes and biscuits :D ... am trying to loose weight ... i have a horrid feeling the cake won't help ...

ah yeah! about the pain ... so ... I had my splint off :D yeah ... I eventually had it off the week before Whittington, there was so much sewing that in the end, i was getting 4 hrs sleep a night just to finish half of it.  Needless to say, after the first day at show (3 day show in total) I had a terrible breakdown and eventually my friend Laura took me to one side and did yet more sewing with me around the campfire (alone) and taught me a new song :) It was a lovely afternoon and I eventually caught up with my group in the pub several hours later for a quick pint where I'd discovered that Guildford group had single handedly drunk ALL the hobgoblin...

In other news, two of Gavin's best friends got married earlier this year - they'll never read this blog, but i wanted to post "congratulations to Mr and Mrs Townend!" The wedding was in an old medieval hall and the mystery pastry Gavin put down from the menu for me was lovely :D Kirsty looked utterly stunning in her wedding dress and I seem to have made very good friends with her now which is awesome!  Just because it was so lovely, i will post a picture from the wedding for you :)

Oh the pain...

Oh wow - I'm sorry I didn't post last month; I admit, I've been a bit lazy...

It's a week before Easter holidays and I can't wait!  It's also only about 5 weeks till Whittington and I'm so excited!  So what's happened to me lately?  Well, first off, I had my toe bent back by a friend during a zombie nerf war 2 sundays ago for Dan's birthday.  To explain, we were zombies being shot at and i lay on top of my boyfriend Gavin as i pretended to die. Sarah was trying to crawl under the barricade on my left, so i moved my foot out of the way for her.  Jack then staggered up behind me and trod on my toe, bending it back.  No-one had any painkillers, so we had to kill the pain with alcohol ... 2 double rum and cokes for me ^_^*

The other accident I had was back in June last year where I was playing rugby on the beach for my friend Jordan's birthday and I tackled Chris all wrong, bending my arm back.  A few weeks ago, I was struggling to even just put clothes on in the morning and so I went to my doctor's who sent me to the hospital to have a splint fitted.  Sadly this means no training for me for the next 6 weeks, or sewing... but never mind.  So boooooooored!!!!

... And then I Became a bit of a Gamer!

I have a confession to make to you readers of my blog ... whoever you are ... I've recently been watching the play through of Assassins Creed online.  I've never been able to find a switch off in my life; I'm always thinking and analysing life, but now I can finally relax.  When I watch it being played, I forget everything in my life and can just exist in an imaginary world where nothing in reality matters and all my troubles melt away.

In other news, I have successfully caught up with my favourite gaming series "The Guild" and would definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it :) I also bought a copy of Oblivion 4; I know I'm 5 years late, but my laptop won't run Skyrim which makes me sad :( Never mind.

So yeah, that's my gaming life at the moment; I think Gavin is secretly pleased that I'm slowly learning more about it and soon he might actually have a half decent player over the holidays for COD4 ... yeah ... that could be a while to be honest ... o.O....

What else ... ah yes :) I should tell you that our 1 year anniversary went brilliant!!!!  It was such a lovely night - we started out by cooking dinner at the flat and then we went out to the top of Williamson Park and cuddled together looking over to Morecambe Bay; it was really beautiful.  Anyways, pictures!

 This is the pie once it was finished and decorated by Gavin and I - it was lovely :)

 These were the chocolate rice crispie cornflake cakes I made for pudding ...

And I'm sorry, it was too tempting ... I made a cheese ruin with the blocks of cheese Gavin cut ... I tried to make a house, but it fell apart ... so that's why it's a ruin :) x

Just on my Mind

I just wanted to post today, to say that I love my boyfriend.  It's hard when you're in competition with your parents - they want something different to what you want.  They're always telling you to start listening to your head more because your heart always lands you into pain.  But I'm following my heart again and this time it's going to work.  Because I want it too.  People tell me I take life too seriously, that I take my relationship too seriously, my mum in particular.  But if I don't take this chance, if I lose a great opportunity, I may never have it back.  I make my new year's resolution this year to be less serious and to not care as much what people think.  It's not always the end of the world.  Oh, and the relationship thing...?  There are just a few times in life where family have to be put second, even though it breaks your heart treating them as somewhat less important.  But I've got to follow my heart.  I don't know where it's going to lead me, but I want to have the courage to go there and face those daemons head on.  And whilst I'm still with him, Gavin will always come first.

Rose x

The First Blogged Noel

Christmas has been and gone and so has another year!!!  I've already finished my anniversary present for Gavin - I sewed him a bookmark and even made a tassle for it :) Althouth ... if i'm honest, I think I've been doing that in order to put off doing my uni work... o.O

Anyways, there's no way in hell that I'm ready for the new year, but to me, it's just another day.  I have finally started my essay though and despite the fact that I only have until the 4th to do it... ... ...

I've gained so much weight this Christmas!  It's not been the food - it's because my mum keeps giving me and my brother hot chocolate with sprinkles and marshmallows every night :p then again, I'm going to start training again at re-enactment next semester so I should lose it quickly :) But tonight, since my brother is around a friend's house for new year's even with a bunch of mates and Gavin's around his best mates' house, my mum and I are having a lovely night in watching Vicar of Dibley, Paul and Indiana Jones ^_^*  Ah my relaxing holiday at home; how i love it :)

Ooooooo, I must tell you about what happened at The Grand Theatre.  Since gaining the position of stage manager for the adult panto, I've been thinking a lot about my hobbies and my future.  However, on the evening of the panto, I will forever be haunted by the knowledge that I am the first person to get the tabs (red curtain) caught and ... well ... to explain in a diagram ...

This also happened when I asked Gavin to pull the curtain for me on the second and final night...

As well as that ... again, in diagram form, I will demonstrate how I also nearly set the theatre alight ... not something I'm proud of ...

I just want to establish here and now that those people have NOT been set alight!!! All was well in the end ... but ... I advise any budding stage manager to always take cues themselves where pyro's may be involved ...

Happy new year!!!

The Story of the Pig Skin

It's been a long time since my last post o.O... sorry i haven't written anything in a while - been busy with uni.  Anyways, you're probably wondering what I've been up to recently.

Let's see - a few weeks ago, I was in town looking to see if any butchers sold rabbit skins.  None of them did sadly, but one butcher said "we don't have rabbit skins, but we do have pig skins".  Ok, fair enough I thought and came back the next day to buy loads off him for a pound!  Feeling rather chuffed and impressed with myself, I took the raw skin to Gavin's house.  It was all fine, up until the point 4 days later when the smell got so bad that his mum ended up putting it in another 3rd bag and a plastic container!

So we ditched that skin and on our return from his house back to Lancaster, we bought some more since, after a few giggles with the head of our re-enactment society Dan, we decided to accept the challenge and make authentic raw hide with the skin.

First, we tried using powdered garden lime mixed with warm water which ... turned the piece of skin into bleached skin, putrid water and cement... rest assured, we quickly threw the entire experiment out... the bucket also.

The second plan that evening was to attempt to bake it dry.  After many pointless questions from my flatmates as to what we were doing (several often repeated questions), we started baking it on a low temperature pre-warning my flatmates that the only "downside" would be that the room would smell of bacon ... not really much of a downside if i'm honest, but we thought we'd tell them.  So Gavin and I sat in the kitchen waiting for it to dry out and they randomly wander in about an hour into the process demanding to know why i used one of their fancy knives.  Gavin and I had been really hygenic about the whole pig skin thing I'd like to point out here and now and had done all our washing up already.  I pointed to one of the knives draining on the side - "this one?" I asked.  "Yeah!" they moaned.  "It's not her knife and I can prove it" I said.  Realising how foolish they'd been they stated "I mean we're not accusing you or anything" (Which they just did)  Too late - I'd already pulled the knife apart - handle from blade and simply replied "It's not her knife".  Not wanting to accept defeat, they moaned and questioned us on how long it was going to take again complaining about how it made them "feel sick" - a phrase I've heard far too often about EVERYTHING with those two.  It makes no difference anymore.  I did the universal "wanna go for a walk after this?" to Gavin after they'd left the room who understood completly that this meant "I'm really angry, annoyed and frustrated right now - wanna go out so I can vent some anger with you in private?"  The two of us went on a VERY long walk!

Rest assured, recently, they went home for study week and on the weekend, Gavin and I finally managed to finish the raw hide properly without being rushed - it was finally a success!! ^_^*

A Lovely Change

I've had a really sore throat these last few days, but I've been doing the lemon tea treatment Gavin suggested and it seems to be working - I'm feeling a lot better than I was yesterday :)

Well, I think I want to scream at the moment.  We have to do these online forums for poetry studies by way of assessment and I still have no idea what I'm doing/saying/ or anything for that matter.  I'm just going online, trying to find some sort of evidence that can link to the poem and then posting it.  Fortunatly, I'm hoping that I can do really well in the essays this year and see if that will get my mark up to a 2-1 by the end of this second year.  I only have to make one more post on this week's forum to guarantee at least just passing it.

My bedroom is looking much better since I started tidying it and I have been far more positive around my flatmates today since ... the event.  I think it'll just be a case of them getting used to me and visa versa.  I'm not really one to socialise - I like being on my laptop in my bedroom, where as they like to socialise with each other and chat in the front room - I just tend to potter about the place and that's what makes me who I am.  my door is always open, so if they don't want to come in for a chat, then that's fine by me.  Anyways, I think it's all calming down now - after this weekend when they go home, I think it'll get better - we're all having to knuckle down and do work now anyways.

Laurence is supposed to be coming over tonight with a friend's tunic that I have to repair - somehow, after repairing it once, he's managed to get a spear in the chest and cause yet ANOTHER hole!  I might just say that this is the last time I'll repair it :p

Anyways, on another note, Gray and I went out to get a cup of coffee each at break today and on the way, we saw the most awesome bird ever!  Somehow, it had managed to climb up the side of the wall and was perched on one of the bricks, but on closer inspection, he and I noticed that there was no way that bird could have stayed on!  To honour the bird, he and I decided to call him "spider bird", like spider pig from The Simpsons :p