Pages

Wednesday 27 February 2013

RIP Colin

When I was eight years old, a new family moved in next door. They had a girl my age and a son who was four years younger than me so my brother and I played with them every single day for about four years straight. Over that time, I got to meet some of their relatives, mainly their three grandparents. There was their dad's mum, Joy, and their mum's parents, Colin and Buela. I never really found Joy very chatty and never had a proper conversation with her, but Colin and Buela were two of the friendliest people I'd ever met. They would always want to sit down and see how I was and said hi to everyone they met in the street.


Even eight years ago, Colin was in poor health. I'm not sure exactly what was wrong with him but for the time I knew him, he was never fully healthy. But that worst part is that my friend, his only granddaughter, never ever ever appreciated the things he did for her. He doted on her and her brother and he was loving and caring and sweet. He wanted to spend time with her and get to know her, but she never let him. She always pushed him away and would complain to me about when he and Buela came to visit. She would count down the days until they would leave and would be thoroughly horrible about him.

Colin recently became ill again and had been in hospital for the past few weeks. I don't think my friend ever went with her mum to see him while he was there. Last week, Colin decided he didn't want to receive any more treatment to keep him alive - just painkillers so that he could go painlessly. On Monday, it was said that he would be dead by the end of the week. It happened yesterday, and I hope he went peacefully.

So I just wanted to pay tribute to Colin, one of the nicest, friendliest, sweetest people I ever met. Rest in peace, Colin.

Saturday 23 February 2013

23/02/13

Today I met Jess (www.theadorabledork.blogspot.co.uk) for the first time. I know a lot of people say you shouldn't meet people off the internet but, ya know, yolo. Just kidding, but it was a good day. I first started talking to Jess on blogspot in September, I think, and then we DMed on twitter for a bit and have been facebooking since October. So, it kind of just made sense that we met up for a shopping trip, haha. We went to Guildford and I've never got the train by myself before actually, not entirely alone, so I was a bit worried about getting lost. Thankfully, everything went smoothy-smoothly. Oh my god, I just read that back - I sound like the biggest loser. I get the bus by myself but I've just never needed to get the train without anyone with me!


We went shopping for like four hours, I think. I bought a lovely dress for £16 and a purse for a fiver, both from Republic. Guildford honestly has the best shops. I couldn't get a decent photo of me wearing the dress because the lighting in my room was bad but I got a shot of the pattern:



The mint-green purse

This is only a tiny post but I have a ton of homework to do; I am the world's best procrastinator.

Friday 22 February 2013

If you're one of us then roll with us


It's a celebration of any sort of quirks 

or eccentricities



- Ke$ha, on We R Who We R
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXvmSaE0JXA



Live by this.

A m s t e r d a m 2 0 1 3


We didn't get off to a great start on Tuesday morning. Everyone was happily seated on the plane, everything was going as planned, taxiing down the runway - but then the engine cut out. Engineers came aboard to try and fix it but they couldn't so we needed to take a coach to another plane, wait for it to be de-iced and wait for the crew to arrive. We were delayed by over three hours but as my younger brother said, "let's just be thankful that the engines didn't stop while we were in the air". Once we arrived at Amsterdam airport, Schipol, we got the train to the city centre. Within the first five minutes, we'd witnessed a drug deal and had seen a man pissing on the street corner, completely in open view for the public to see. Yummy.


Have you ever seen such a crazy amount of bikes?!

Things definitely picked up from there though: we arrived at our hotel and then went shopping, visited a tiny Catholic church, had a tour of a diamond factory, and visited a Rembrandt exhibition. We found a lovely Indian restaurant for dinner and I discovered the delights of butter chicken. Deffo my new favourite Indian dish.




The next day, we hit up all the markets and I bought some gorgeous boots (they're my new babies). It was pretty much a day of shopping. We also went on a canal cruise through the city which was beautiful and walked through an enormous park. I think we walked about twenty miles over the three days, so crazy. Oh, and we also accidentally wandered into the Red Light District... a little awkward. There were actually prostitutes out at 11am on a Wednesday morning. Mad. We had an Indonesian meal that night which is my new favourite type of food. Even more than the butter chicken.




Yesterday morning, we looked at a few more markets and did a lot more walking. We visited an old merchant's house which was beautiful and was a lot like the National Trust properties here.There's also this amazing shopping centre which is absolutely huge but everything in it is so expensive so I didn't actually buy anything. Our flight was at 4.50pm so we left the city at about 2pm. Thankfully, our plane was all fine this time and we were back at our house by 6pm which was so great. It was an amazing trip, and I'm definitely going back one day but I think it's more of a place you visit with friends than with your family. 

The shopping centre





Song of the day:

Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GemKqzILV4w

Monday 18 February 2013

Bye England!

We're off to Amsterdam tomorrow and have to get up at about 4.30am so I'm having an early night. I think I'm nearly packed but I'm limited to one pair of shoes for the trip so I think it's going to be my Docs. I had my annual Valentine's Day jog and bacon sandwiches with my friend today (bit late, yea) - it's how we celebrate our love... for life. Cheesy, I know, but it's fun and we ran four miles so I'm happy! I also watched the Notebook for the first time and oh my god, it's amazing! I'm going to have to watch it again, but alone, so I can fully appreciate it.


So I'll try and get some naaaice photos of Amsterdam to document our time there but I'm not making any promises as my camera is prone to deleting all the photos by itself from time to time. Until Thursday, bye! xx


Twitter: https://twitter.com/kategreen38
Tumblr: http://smilingismyfavouritest.tumblr.com/


Song of the day:

Sticks and Stones - Jamie T
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9APEZMeH0o

Thursday 14 February 2013

The day the nerds won

Happy Valentine's Day guys! Lol, I don't really celebrate though, except for bacon sandwiches and a jog with my friend which will be happening on Monday. It's been a very long, tiring, boring week but it's so close to half term for which I am extremely thankful.


Outfit for Wednesday 13th February:



Cardigan: my mum's castoff
Top: Dorothy Perkins, £4
Skirt: TopShop, £28
Belt: TK Maxx

I'm pretty sure it's similar to what I wore on Friday but I don't remember what other people wore last week so they probably won't know I've worn this already, which is good.


Today was a very special day. No, I didn't get a card from an admirer, but I did do something very brave with my friends at lunchtime. We sat in the kool korner. Allow me to show what our sixth form common room looks like and the "seating plan" which we must all follow (or we get bitched about by the kool kids):


I really hope you can see my annotations on here. Each kind of sausage shaped thing represents rows of chairs and the double-sausages in the middle of the page represent chairs back to back (space saving, you know). So, my friends and I usually sit somewhere in the middle and the kool kids always always always have their korner on the bottom right hand side of the page. Today, I came up from getting my BLT and the common room was almost deserted, except for my friends and some other lovely people. I think everyone was out getting Tesco's Caesar salad or something. Well, the point is that the korner was also deserted. No one was there. What do you do when a situation like this strikes? You run over to the korner and plop yourself down, put on Do You Hear the People Sing, and turn the volume on the speakers all the way up. #SuchFun. Being the losers we are, we made a documentary style video about how it feels to sit in the korner and were interrupted by "owners" of the korner coming back in, about half an hour later. But they walked in, saw us, looked around the room, and walked back out. On what planet do you not sit in the common room just because someone has taken your spot? Like, there were about sixty other chairs but they'd rather walk around the school until next lesson than not sit by the speakers? It's kind of sad. It was sort of like something out of a film, like they looked so confused and then so disgusted, and just left. But you know what, that's maybe fifteen people in the sixth form out of about 300, so I can deal. And, tragically, this was the highlight of my day.


Song of the day:

Tonight Tonight - Hot Chelle Rae
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzlNFcT2aOE

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Do you hear the people sing?

Les Mis was amazing! Oh my goodness, I would see it a hundred times more. We missed the first five minutes because of traffic and slow buses but I don't think it made much of a difference. The highlight, for me, was Samantha Barks. She was on Andrew Lloyd Webber's "I'd Do Anything" on BBC 1 about five years ago and she was always my favourite on there. Unfortunately she didn't win it, but she still got to play Nancy on stage and it led her to star in Les Mis. I cried so much (spoiler alert!) when Eponine died. I just think that she and Marius (Eddie Redmayne is SO hot!) were perfect for each other. And I also cried at the end when I just felt overwhelmed with French patriotism. I'm not even French but tears were rolling down my face and I was sobbing and sniffling in my seat. It may have been down to the fact that they did a close up of Eponine's face in the "Do You Hear the People Sing?" reprise - it set me off. Anyway, go and see it if you haven't already. Best cinema experience ever.


TGI's was delicious. I had potato skins filled with melted cheese and bacon with sourcream and chive dip for my starter, and the Jack Daniel's burger for my main course. So good. We went on a little digestive walk (or digestive waddle) down by the Thames after our meal which was also really lovely. Great day out. And after staying up all night watching films at my friend's house, I was so not up for a football match, and as luck would have it, it was cancelled. Have I ever been so happy? I don't think so.


The cake my friend made for the Dan-and-Phil-obsessed birthday gal:



I also found a picture of Emma Watson yesterday which made me cry laughing:



And today, when I got home, I had an exceedingly productive time writing out all the states of America just to prove I can do it without an atlas:



Song of the day:

Do You Hear the People Sing - Les Mis movie cast

Friday 8 February 2013

OOTDs

This week has been so crazy! I've had a ton of work to do and have also just been lazy - too busy reading and sleeping. I thought I'd post my outfit-of-the-day for Monday, Wednesday and Thursday too (I dressed like a total hobo on Tuesday and didn't get a decent photo today) since I actually don't have a single idea as to what to blog about. I obviously just used to write about complete rubbish on here or had a really exciting life up until now. I think it's probably the former.


Outfit for Sunday 3rd February: (going out for dinner for my dad's birthday)



Jumper: Camden market, £15
Skirt: charity shop, £4.50


Outfit for Monday 4th February:



Jumper: Marks and Spencer, £35
Skirt: charity shop, £4.50
(worn with floral Doc Martens, £82)


Outfit for Wednesday 6th February:



Dress: TopShop, £36
Boots: Shoe Zone, £15


Outfit for Thursday 7th February:



Jacket: TK Maxx, £15
Top: New Look, £12?
Jeans: BHS, £18?
(worn with Doc Martens, £82)


Outfit for football training in the rain and wind and almost-thunder-storm-conditions, late on a Thursday evening, running around for an hour in Arctic temperatures:




This weekend is going to be mega busy. It's my friend's birthday tomorrow (her presents still haven't arrived, wah!) so I'm leaving the house at 9.45am to drop off my staying-the-night stuff with her. We're then going with our other friends to Kingston to see Les Mis (SO excited) and are having TGI Fridays afterwards. It's going to be my first time at TGIs - any suggestions? I've been looking at the menu online, like the loser I am, and I'm thinking the Jack Daniels burger sounds so delicious. And Sunday comprises of essay writing and a football match. Oh, the joys of life!


Song of the day:

Carry on My Wayward Son - Kansas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw6_VXPwm6U

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Professor Brian Cox

I think Brian Cox is amazing. He's so intelligent and charismatic and wonderful - not that I've ever met him (I wish!) - and he used to be in a rock band. His voice is just so hypnotic and when he talks, you just believe everything that's coming out of his mouth. I'm not particularly interested in physics but when his programmes are on, I'll watch because I find he makes it really entertaining and I always feel like it was the best-spent hour of my day when it's over.



I recently read an article in the Telegraph magazine about him (by Bryony Gordon, one of my favourite journalists!) and it ended with this quotation from him:

"I suppose the best way to have some kind of religious experience, to develop some awe, is to actually learn about it... It is the difference between going outside and seeing a sky full of lights and a sky full of worlds."


I just thought it was such a beautiful quote and just about sums up how I feel about the whole science vs. religion debate. I'm pretty sure a lot of people disagree but I feel that science and religion, in relation to creation of the world, go hand in hand. I believe in both.


Song of the day:

Science and Faith - The Script
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2YXqgZTWu4

Sunday 3 February 2013

February

I'm getting so inconsistent in my blogging, I'm sorry! I've been away since Friday evening at my grandparents' house near Birmingham to celebrate my dad's birthday - which is today. We got back this morning but I've been busy playing football (6-0 win, yay), taking a long hot bath, and going out for dinner, and haven't had time to blog. My mum's recently told me we're flying over to Amsterdam for a few days in half term so I'm looking forward to that. I think we're going to the Anne Frank museum which will be really interesting (although not the happiest of activities) and going on canal boats amongst other things. I'm also thinking about going to uni there because it would only cost me £3,000 as opposed to £27,000 so we're possibly going to look at a few Amsterdam universities.


Yesterday, I had to go and buy and few things that I've been wanting for a while. These were a plain white top from Dorothy Perkins for £4 in the sale, a grey cardigan from Peacocks for £12, and Carmex lipbalm for £1.29. I've heard so many good things about this lipbalm and it's definitely lived up to its expectations. I've only applied it three times but my lips are already smoothy-smooth. Made by angels.






Song of the day:

Kiss You - One Direction (Not Another Boy Band cover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ea2bH3f4AA