France and So On

St Mont Michel

I'm sorry for being away so long. That's all there is to it really. I have many excellent reasons, but  wont bore you too far. Basically, I've been on a French exchange. That might sound amazingly brave, but sadly, I'm not courageous enough to go off and speak no English to a stranger for a week. The exchange was organised by my school, and the whole of the year 9 French class had the opportunity to go. Some people weren't all that keen to do something which would have a benefit to their education, but I managed to bully blackmail persuade one of my best buddies to go with me. To be honest, it was amazing, even thouh I was extremely lucky with my Frenchy. I got a girl who was pretty similar to me, and was so nice and so friendly that I didn't want to go home at the end of the week.

Of course, because I'm a teenage girl, my main concerns were the friendship groups, the outfits I wore every day and what I ate; but despite myself, surprisingly I actually did learn an awful lot of French. We stayed in Normandie, which was beautiful, but remarkably old, and went to the French school for all of two days. (whoopdedoop). The school has been doing this excact echange trip, with the excact same activities for about 2000 years, the very first trip being led by Jesus riding a dinosaur. Then, like now, they went to a goat farm, summer tabgerning, to St Mont Michel, a cemetary and D-Day beach and into the tiny village of Athis De L'Orne.

My favourite place I have to say was St Mont Michel. This was partly (like 98%) because I'm such a geek, and St Mont Michel looks EXCACTLY like Harry Potter had kids with Cinderella and then their kid turned out to be an amazing island wih a cathedral on it. I apologise for the lack of photos, but my phone's schocking, and besides I lost it on the ferry. (Is it bad that I felt disappointed when the Ferry people said that they'd send it to me in the post? Bad me.) St Mont Michel has stairs everywhere like some steam rollers nightmare, and a big castle thing perched on top of the island like an elegant birds nest, and I'd highly recommend it.

Without photo's I had to find some way of validating the trip, s that was it folks. I've got a hell of a lot more where that came from, but I'll take pity on you poor fiends reading this, and leave it at that. It was so sad to leave my Frenchy (called Elodie by the way - how French!), but I said I'd keep in contact. We'll see how that one goes (I'm pretty lazy.) ANyway,

Until next time

x

Retail therapy, exams and the horrific world of politics

So, this is it folks. The day we've all been waiting for. It's election result day, and we've all been given the chance to change our country, to rid ourselves of the conservatives and start a new era. So, what happened? Honestly, I don't know. I'm pretty left wing; I support the Green party, and Labour, so why so many would vote Conservative is beyond me. Now we're going to have to wait another five years before we have our next chance to get someone new, and meanwhile, the Conservatives have pretty much free reign to make whatever horrifying decisions they like, not that thye didn't already. Ugh. I am done with politics.

Anyyway, life's been hard. Well, y'know, in a sort of middle class mild teenage angst sort of way. Plus, we've had exams; so, so many exams, and now we're having to retake some because of some great reason that the teachers haven't bothered to divulge to us unworthy slaves. Grr. After all that, some serious retail therapy was definitely in order. I used to love Primark, but the whole dying child slave's final words stitched with the blood of thousands sort of thing kind of put me off. My new obsession is TK Maxx, and it's pretty darn good (although a bit too easy to spend £50 if you ask me. Which they didn't. Hence my lack of money now.) I'm going to show you what I bought so you can be just like me make sure you buy stuff that's good or something.

1. The trousers are very boho, but that's not the greatest thing. The best bit is that they're just like pyjama bottoms, but they're acceptable to wear in public! (pyjamas will get you some weird looks, trust me.) Please, just save yourself some hassle and buy these. They make me so happy it's even worth spending FIFTEEN POUNDS on them. Fifteen.

2. These make up brushes are so soft and fluffy I swear they are crafted purely out of disney fanfics. I've used two of the three so far, and they're amazing (except they smell of plastic, but they are made of it I suppose, so it's not fair to criticise. I don't criticise people because they smell human after all.)

3. I wore this dress today. That should give you a picture of how much I love it- it's British spring, which is the equivalent of monsoon season anywhere else. (Nah, that's too dramatic. It's not that exciting; it's mostly constant showers. All year. Ugh.) Oh well, while I wear the dress it's summer in my heart.

4. Isn't this just the most gorgeous colour nail polish ever?! I think so anywhere, and it's on my toes right now, and it would be on my fingers too if our school wasn't so harsh and and dystopian.

5. Um. I got this out of pure necessity, after my dear mother 'accidentally' put my mascara through the wash, and then it sort of died. I'm glad she did though, because this stuff (Bourjois queen attitude if you want to be more technical.) is really good, and doesn't slowly travel down your face during the day like my old mascara, until you looked like a panda at a funeral. 

6. These were kind of an impulse buy. I haven't had chance to wear them yet (damn you, British weather.) but they're nice, I guess. It's just that they were ten pounds. I'm still in shock.

7. AH, memories. I've worn this already, on a freezing walk up a hill, with my jacket making my bandeau slide down, the wind strong enough to fly our dog as a kite, and the potential to get lost anywhere (and I did.) It was great.

So, that's where my £50 went, and je ne regrette rien folks. Apart from the fact that all that money spending fun is over now, probably for a good while.

Until next time

x

Politics and all that Malarky

The world of politics is in uproar right now, like usual. This time though, it's because of the election, and one of the things that's happening is there are loads of big debates and stuff on Tv, including two leader debates. I watched both of these, so I'm now officially a political expert. As such, I'm fully qualified to come up with whatever baloney I like, and pass it off as the truth. (I did this before actually, but now it's legal, or something.)

In general British politics is pretty rubbish. The politicians are slimy, arrogant gits, their promises are built of air and their only agenda is filling their own wallets. Well, most of them. They're not all bad - Nicola Bennett (Green party) has the right ideas, and Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) is genuinely likeable. They were little islands of reason among the rest of the creeps on stage.

Leanne Wood wasn't creepy, but she was unbelievably boring. Her welsh accent had just the right amount of calmness to send me over the edge, and I had little naps when it was her turn to speak. The men were almost unbearable, with David Cameron firmly rooted in the past. He went on for ages about all the great stuff he'd done while in power this time, but I think I was maybe asleep or eating something when it happened. Or even watching a new episode of Sherlock, and God knows that happens infrequently enough.

Miliband was pretty slimy in both debates, but can we just talk about this?

Miliband's sass face

Oh my.... *wipes tears from hysterical laughter* His heart is in the right place bless him. The same can't be said for Nigel Farage though. What was he thinking? 'Hmmm... Not enough people hate me right now, so I think I'll boost the numbers with some rot about HIV positive immigrants. Yaas, that ticks off two offensive boxes in one! Hurrah!' Grrr. I hate that man.

Anyway, now I've got that out of my system, there are some more craft posts coming soon, on account of my friends insisting on having birthdays, so I needed to find presents somewhere. It seems to be an annual thing or something.

Until next time 

x

The exotic Isle of Wight

This easter we went to the notoriously luxurious and exotic Isle of Wight, full of gorgeous people, hot sun and azure seas. I wish. It is, however, packed with nice little days out, and lots of places to eat. Not exciting exactly, but nice. I'll post a little more about the specifics if you like, but for now here's a list of the things me and my family did, to either inspire or warn you.

Osborne house

We packed a lot in, and completely got our moneys worth (especially as it was a relatively cheap mini holiday). The ferry there was a bit iffy, and pretty darn small, but it wasn't rough or anything, and it was only a 20 minute ride. It was almost completely empty, mostly because we were on it at the ungodly hour of half past five. In the morning. Am. Before breakfast. I have no idea who decided that this would be a good idea, but anyway.

On the first day we managed to find a kind of smeggy little cafe that opened pretty early. It wasn't bad really, although because I'm stuck up I felt it could do with a little more class, if you know what I mean. I think it was the sheer quantity of grease that they stuffed into a small plate under various different guises that I objected to the most. It was fun though, in a strange way. Later in the day we went to Osbourne house, which used to be the home of queen Victoria, and is (understandably, as she was the queen, and Britain was rich) huge. I felt pretty proud of myself afterwards, like I'd just done a full two hours of classwork, plus a long walk. Talking of long walks though, the one we did the next day made a wander through a Osbone pale in comparison.

And the walk stretched on.

We walked, get this, eight miles! Yes, eight! *unimpressed silence falls* . Well, it might not seem all that impressive to you walking types, but for me and my little unfit legs I may as well have walked to the moon and back, rather than to a National Trust property that is basically the vague trailing off of the Isle of Wight.

The Needles

Surprisingly, the family got on quite well together, even with prolonged contact and forced interaction. I even managed to bully them all into going to a place that was in the book I was reading at the time, and there were no major arguments, and it didn't take all that long for my siblings to stop giving me cold glares and pointed silences. The place I wanted to go was the Devils Chimney, and to be fair to me it was actually pretty amazing. It was two sheer walls of rock, stretching up from a path where the steps were at a diagonal because the entire thing was practically slipping into the sea. Thankfully, it held up while we were there, although the enormously fat dog being carried by the grumpy woman we met before going back up again may have dislodged the cliff face by now.

The Devil's Chimney

In short, we had a brilliant time. I don't know if the Isle of Wight has recovered yet from my dad making impressions of the man with loud laugh in our restaurant (while the man was still on the table next to us... He seemed to leave pretty quickly after they finished eating), or from the transportation of most of their interesting rocks back to England (courtesy of my sister). Oh well, They've got a whole year before we come back.

The Great British Comic Relief Bake Off

I love The Great British Bake Off. As the name suggests, it is so British that the Queen should just resign because, frankly, we don't need her to boost Britain any more. (Not really, I love the Queen.) But, really, The Great British Bake Off is, in a word, perfection. If you haven't ever watched it then crawl out from what ever hole you've been hiding in right now, because you're missing out. That said, there isn't actually the real thing on at the moment, although there is The Great British Comic Relief Bake Off. The picture at the top is of the first, and definitely funniest of the series. That one, you must watch. I laughed hysterically the whole time, and obviously you can trust my fabulous sense of humour. Dame Edna should be the Queen, and her incredible creations should be framed - they are absolutely unique.

I have to say though, in the second of the series it all took a dramatic turn for the worse. A mistake was made, a medium sized, extremely annoying mistake from Brighton. No, it wasn't a colossal stick of rock, smashing the gorgeous baking tent in and crushing the lovely Marie Berry. Even worse than that. It was Zoella.

Uggh. That sickeningly sweet smile, her annoying voice and self depreciating ways. She infuriates me, that's for sure, but I suppose that's good telly. On the upside, she didn't win (spoilers, sorry) and her cake failed. I felt just a little smug as the roof caved in, but then she probably gained 3000 followers during that moment of sadness, so I guess she's even. Still, apart from her, you must watch this. You must.

The Vault

                                           

If you've ever imagined or read about London (and if you live there, just bear with me) you'll probably go for the buses, the tourist sites, Big Ben and statues of important people on horses. And then there's the bits that you read about in books, the bits that the cool people and the hipsters go to, the whole culture that exists if you can only find it. I'm here to tell you that it does exist, if only in the form of the vault. It's amazing, in a word.

 I wouldn't normally know about things like this, because I don't live in London, but we somehow ended up going there to watch a performance of Macbeth, and it was like nothing else I've ever seen. To start with, we came straight out of the station, and literally down a hole, into the pavement. Under the street is a whole load of abandoned underground tunnels, and every inch is covered with graffiti. I was pretty happy to just stand and stare for a while (they even change it every day!) surrounded by cigarette smoke, but it was pretty cold, so we managed to find the entrance to the actual place (which was sign posted by the graffiti, which was cool). Inside was just wow. Enough to make me perform grammatical acts of atrocity.

Inside is, obviously, more tunnels, but the kind of foyer bit is red brick, with iron doors leading into different spaces. My two favourite bits were the bar area and the gallery bit. The bar area is incredible, and exactly what I imagined in all the books I love. It's quite dark, with odd patches of flashing lights, and drapes over rickety wooden tables. There're crazy art installations, umbrellas hanging from ceilings and loads of indie people lounging on battered arm chairs. In the gallery there are chairs made out of hanging bathtubs, and tables made of huge cotton reels. A piano with no case is covered with posters for upcoming performances, and it slumps in the corner, next to a display of tea and cakes.

The Macbeth performance (I didn't take this, sadly)

Basically, if you ever get a chance to go, definitely do. It's still around for a few weeks, I think, and I couldn't recommend it more. It kind of feels like I've found a grungy fairyland, that only a few can see. (And yes, I'm extremely smug about it.)

Indoor scavenger hunt

I, being both mature and sensible (that wasn't a joke, don't laugh) , do some babysitting occasionally. Admittedly, it is primarily for my brother and sister, but it's still pretty miraculous that my parents trust me with them. On the up side, I do work for my money, so last time I baby sat them I made an indoor treasure hunt. Okay, so I stole their teddies for motivation, but they still had (slightly terrifying- I was posing as 'the mysterious bandersnatch') fun. These are the clues that I used in case you want to be as adored as moi, and I've included the answers in case you don't have the same brain power as my seven year old sister.

Keep it clean and keep it dry.

Can you guess? Come on, just try!

Washing machine

Flour and sugar and coffee and tea,
I keep these handy but hard to see.

Pots, which store these.

Without me you'd have no fresh food.
So come chill with me - don't be rude!

Fridge 

I never get angry but I do get hot.
I'm the perfect place for a pan or a pot.

The top of an oven or stove

I'm hungry! I'm hungry! Please feed me a slice.
I'll spit it back out all brown and nice.

A toaster (This one's my favourite)

I'm mostly filled with things that rarely bring you glee
like bills, and junk, and other stuff you'd rather never see. 

A letter box

Communicate with family, research, shop, and play games.
Since we spread around the globe, your lives have really changed. 

A computer

Be the first back to the room where this hunt did begin
If you're the first you'll hear the words, "Congrats, to you... YOU WIN!" 

Of course you don't put these in the places that they mean, you keep clue one, then put the second clue wherever the answer to the first is, and so on.  I gave out sweets at the end, because it's all part of my cunning plan to make my families teeth fall out, and then I can make my fortune selling them on ebay for uses in strange chinese medicines.

Anyway, this is great if it's raining outside or there's been an apocalypse and you can't go out or your face will be eaten off

Starbucks AHAHAHA

Well then folks. The whole world loves Starbucks - the tumblr world, the instagram world, probably even the real world - but I have to ask, why? So it's all tumblr yesss, but guys, tumblr is so mainstream now. Seriously; it's an adjective, like 'google it' , practically not even a thing any more, and so you can't just go 'oh but it's soo tumblr baaaaabeee *giggles* ' and expect me to go along with it. Come on, today I got an expresso ( because I had no idea what it was) in this teeeeeeny cup, and it was tiny, and it cost £1.60  - WHAT is this world coming to? And because I thought an espresso was a normal coffee I bought it, and thought it was reasonable, and then when I opened the cup it was so small I could barely see it. (fume.) AND Starbucks is really unethical too. Hffff.

People are such lemmings.

*note. I mainly don't like Starbucks because I didn't realise what an expresso was, which made me feel foolish. Also, there isn't one in Petersfield, so I can't go that often, and when I did I wasted the opportunity. Sniff.